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HARVARD STUDIES 
IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 

FOUNDED BY THE GENERAL EDITOR 

WILLIAM HENRY SCHOFIELD 

PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 
IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY 

V 

MYTHICAL BARDS 

AND 

THE LIFE OF WILLIAM WALLACE 



HARVARD STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 
VOLUME V 



MYTHICAL BARDS 

AND 

THE LIFE 
OF WILLIAM WALLACE 

BY 

WILLIAM HENRY SCHOFIELD 




CAMBRIDGE 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

1920 






^^> 



COPYRIGHT, 1920 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS 



WAV 26 1920 
©GIA571117 



TO MY WIFE 



PREFACE 

THE writer of a history may, in some respects, 
be likened unto an adventurous knight, who, 
having undertaken a perilous enterprise by way of 
establishing his fame, feels bound, in honor and 
chivalry, to turn back for no difficulty nor hard- 
ship, and never to shrink or quail whatever enemy 
he may encounter. Under this impression, I reso- 
lutely draw my pen, and fall to, with might and 
main, at those doughty questions and subtle para- 
doxes, which, like fiery dragons and bloody giants, 
beset the entrance to my history, and would fain 
repulse me from the very threshold. And at this 
moment a gigantic question has started up, which 
I must needs take by the beard and utterly subdue, 
before I can advance another step in my historic 
undertaking." 

So Washington Irving begins a chapter in his 
Knickerbocker's History of New York, " in which 
the author puts a mighty question to the rout, by 
the assistance of the man in the moon," and thus 
" delivers thousands of people from great embar- 
rassment." 



viii PREFACE 

For several years I have wished to satisfy my 
conscience with regard to a volume, long promised, 
on English Literature from Chaucer to Elizabeth, 
but have been held back for this among other rea- 
sons, that there were many doughty questions con- 
fronting me which could only be solved, if ever, by 
long research, and which needed more time and 
courage than I could muster. I did not feel, further- 
more, that many thousands of people were waiting 
to be delivered from embarrassment with respect to 
them, and when I contemplated conquest, the man 
in the moon declined his aid. There was no way I 
could discover except by " prayer and fasting," 
to which there is not sufficient incentive in our 
hurried days. Yet I began, and made fair progress 
until I reached the mountain fastness of Conjec- 
ture, where ugly faces stared at me from every side, 
and I could not " go round about," as Peer Gynt 
tried to do when confronted by the trolls. One of 
these faces, that of a tragic blind bard, viewed me 
so quizzically that I got angry and determined to 
take him by the beard (every blind bard has been 
envisaged with a beard) and make him at least 
yield, whatever happened for the time being to the 
rest. He seemed, in truth, this my Great Boig, " as 
the air, invulnerable "; but I stuck to him grimly, 
and suddenly he disappeared out of the way. The 
church-bells that helped Peer in dismay — here 



PREFACE ix 

symbols of the above-mentioned prayer and fast- 
ing — conquered him. He went back to faery, 
where he belonged. 

All of which, being interpreted, means that I 
think I have got rid of a bugbear in literary criti- 
cism, and I hope the anxious world will show me 
becoming gratitude. Whether it does or not, I 
shall not lament, for I have had an invigorating 
struggle and feel the better for it. 

It will be obvious to readers familiar with the 
processes of research why I passed from my first 
problem, the secret of Blind Harry, to others allied 
with it, until the scope of the inquiry carried me far 
afield, yet not, I trust, without adding to the value 
of the present publication. I venture now to hope 
that my little book will interest scholarly readers 
of various sorts : the student of Scottish history and 
literature, because it should modify his views re- 
garding a poem that fixed the fame of one of the 
two great Scottish chiefs, as well as regarding the 
oldest Scottish dramatic production; the student 
of Celtic and Scandinavian, because it concerns 
many documents in those tongues, and puts them 
to fresh use; the student of the classics, because it 
deals from a new aspect with Homer's blindness 
and the vexed Homeric question; the student of 
universal folklore, because it illustrates the like- 
ness of primitive conceptions of the other world 



X PREFACE 

and mythical bards in different lands; and, finally, 
literary critics in general, because it discusses the 
time-honored problem of inspiration, and suggests 
a broad basis in popular belief for poets' ideas 
concerning it. In every field the specialist will un- 
doubtedly find faults of commission and omission, 
but with these I beg him to be indulgent. Before 
the War, I had lingered longer over the investiga- 
tion than there was any warrant for in the state 
of my other work, and now, after nearly two years' 
constant occupation with public duties, I find my- 
self unable to continue with this particular task, 
still appealing though it is. 

In conclusion, I should like here to emphasize 
one point touched upon later in the book. Speak- 
ing of Wallace, Lord Hailes wrote in 1776: " His 
achievements, written by Blind Harry, has been 
long a popular book in Scotland. It would be lost 
labor to search for the age, name, and condition of 
an author who either knew not history, or who 
meant to falsify it." This remark is easily under- 
stood as coming from an historian indignant at the 
credence given, even by learned men, to a work 
which does indeed contain, as he asserts, many 
" specious tales " and " childish stories." But, now 
that the need of indignation is passed, now that the 
value of the work has been properly assessed, at 
least by scholars, it can hardly be called lost labor 



PREFACE xi 

to inquire into the circumstances of its production 
and the reasons why it has exerted such a huge in- 
fluence in shaping the opinions of Scots. Granted 
that the Wallace is not itself veracious history, it 
nevertheless made history, for there were hosts be- 
fore Burns into whom it poured a tide of Scottish 
prejudice which greatly interfered with the calm 
solution of political difficulties between the North 
and South in Great Britain. The Wallace is a hu- 
man document; it voiced the feelings of virile men 
struggling with conflicting emotions of a very com- 
mon character, drawn on the one hand from patri- 
otism and self-sacrifice, on the other from lust of 
battle and revenge. 

There are epochs when such writings as the 
Wallace are easily evoked. We are only emerging 
from one now, and grave danger is present in every 
land that unscrupulous patriots may produce popu- 
lar biographies of heroic leaders which would per- 
petuate the hatreds of our own day. Such works, 
let the example of the Wallace bear strong witness, 
would poison the well of international peace and 
trust for a terribly prolonged time. May we have 
abundant works recording noble acts of " trouthe 
and honour, fredom and curteisye," meet to glorify 
the defenders of our national faith, but may these 
be completely void of the " vileinye " of hate! 



xii PREFACE 

What else is wisdom ? What of men's endeavor 
Or God's high grace, so lovely and so great ? 
To stand from fear set free, to breathe and wait. 
To hold a hand uplifted over hate; 

And shall not Loveliness be loved for ever ? 

My hearty thanks are due to my colleagues 
Professors G. L. Kittredge and F. N. Robinson for 
their kindness in reading the proofs of this book. 
To Professor Kittredge I am particularly indebted 
for friendly criticism of it while still in manu- 
script, from which I greatly profited. 

W. H. S. 

East HiUy 

Peterborough, N. H. 



CONTENTS 

Preface Page vii 

I. The Problem of Blind Harry 3 

II. Major's Evidence 14 

III. The Dwarf's Part of the Play 26 

IV. Faery Folk 55 
V. Imaginary Bards 79 

VI. The Mythical and the Actual 

Blind Harry 96 

VII. The Real Author of the Wallace 116 
VIII. The Purpose and Spirit of the 

Wallace 147 

IX. Master Blair 170 

X. The Wallace as History 184 

XI. Blind Harry and Blind Homer 203 

XII. The Progress of Conceptions of 

Poesy 239 

Notes 289 

Index 363 



MYTHICAL BARDS 

AND 

THE LIFE OF WILLIAM WALLACE 



CHAPTER I 

The Problem of Blind Harry 

I would . . . tell 
How Wallace fought for Scotland, left the name 
Of Wallace to be found, like a wild flower. 
All over his dear country, left the deeds 
Of Wallace, like a family of ghosts. 
To people the steep rocks and river banks. 
Her natural sanctuaries, with a local soul 
Of independence and stern liberty. 

Wordsworth 

BLIND HARRY! You cannot avoid him and 
his problem if you busy yourself ever so little 
with Scottish literature. For he wrote one of the 
most influential books that ever appeared in his 
native land, one that contributed mightily to the 
renown of a national hero, William Wallace, val- 
iant champion of noble Scots against treacherous 
Southron foes. Over four centuries have passed 
since then, yet his work is a mystery still. A new 
plan must be tried if we hope to discover the secret 
of the author. 

Thirty odd years ago, when I was an under- 
graduate, and enthusiastic (as I expect ever to re- 
main) for the works of Sir Walter Scott, my atten- 



4 PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 

tion was directed to a study of The Feeling for 
Nature in Scottish Poetry* by Professor Veitch of 
Glasgow, from which I got my first firm impression 
of BHnd Harry's personality. Professor Veitch 
wrote: 

" He seems to have travelled about the country, 
carrying his rhymes in his memory as his stock-in- 
trade, reciting them by lowly hearth and in lordly 
hall, and touching with his own patriotic flame the 
hearts of all ranks of his countrymen. . . . The 
blind Minstrel's only means of subsistence seems 
to have been the voluntary gifts of his patrons, high 
and low. Occasionally in his later years he re- 
ceived the dole of a few shillings from the Royal 
Treasury. He was thus truly a wandering minstrel 
— blind, aged and poor. About the time when the 
race of them was nearly dead — and we may look 
on * The Life of Wallace ' as the actual lay of ' the 
Last Minstrel ' — Major tells us that Harry had 
access to the highest personages in the land; and 
thus it was that Scott, in making his aged harper 
draw near the stately tower of Newark, and pass, 
though with trembling steps, the embattled portal 
arch, to be received with a kindly welcome, was 
but imaginatively repeating the actual experience 
of the last of the accredited Scottish minstrels. 

* Whenever an asterisk or similar mark occurs in the text, 
a note will be found at the end of the book. 



PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 5 

Doubtless, it was often literally true of the blind 
Minstrel as of Scott's harper that — 

'When he caught the measure wild, 
The old man raised his face and smiled, 
And lighten'd up his faded eye, 
With all a poet's ecstasy. 
In varying cadence, soft or strong, 
He swept the sounding chords along; 
The present scene, the future lot, 
His toils, his wants, were all forgot; 
Cold diflSdence and age's frost 
In the full tide of song were lost. 
Each blank in faithless memory void. 
The poet's glowing thought supplied.' " 

Here was surely an appealing picture, especially 
to a young man. A veritable spell has, indeed, ever 
been made to cling to the name Blind Harry — a 
spell of misfortune and pathos, of remoteness and 
regret. The minstrel! The old minstrel! The last 
minstrel of an independent folk! Afflicted and 
neglected, but finely courageous in heart! " Old 
times have changed, old manners gone." All the 
more, we have felt, men should keep in affection- 
ate remembrance this moving figure of past time, 
this poet-patriot of yore. 

The Life of William Wallace has long formed one 
of the chief bulwarks of Scottish nationality. 
Though Professor Veitch's portrait of the author 
is frankly unreal and romantic, one can hardly dis- 



6 PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 

pute his statement about the influence of the poem : 
" Let the critical modern historian dissect and re- 
ject as he may the stories here and there interposed 
in the narrative of Bhnd Harry, it shows but a pur- 
blind imagination not to realize the effect of these, 
and of the whole record implicitly received, on the 
hearts, the impulses, and the bent of character of 
the Scottish people, all through the centuries down 
to the union of the crowns — an influence which 
nerved and steeled them to self-defence and the 
hold of national independence, and which is even 
now manifest in the strong fibre and upright self- 
respect of the national character." 

Over and over again this influence has been em- 
phasized, and critics have repeatedly quoted the 
words of Robert Burns about the modernized ver- 
sion of the poem that he knew: " The story of 
Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice in my veins, 
which will boil along there till the floodgates of 
life shut in eternal rest."* Only the Bible, it 
is averred, has been oftener read by the peas- 
antry of Scotland.! Blind Harry they have long 
regarded reverently, though vaguely, almost as 
an inspired seer of Holy Writ. And, now, to give 
him more dignity, scholars write his name on 
the title-pages of editions, and elsewhere, in the 
form " Henry the Minstrel," as if the " blind " 
were too doubtful, the " Harry " too familiar, and 



PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 7 

only " the Minstrel " worthy to stand as the poet's 
memorable designation. 

Once grant the universal assumption that Blind 
Harry was truly a blind minstrel, and he and his 
book are a bewildering puzzle; for the assumption 
stated, resting entirely as it does on external evi- 
dence, conflicts fiercely with what one would natur- 
ally infer from reading the poem itself. The ex- 
ternal evidence, apart from the name of the author, 
consists solely of some incidental remarks made by 
the theologian John Major (Mair) nearly forty 
years after the poem was composed, and is depend- 
ent, it would seem, on mere imaginative surmise. 
Major's remarks, however, have biassed, if not 
perverted, every subsequent judgment of the Wal- 
lace, both as a literary and an historical document. 
Until recently all critics of the poem have quoted 
or referred to them as affording trustworthy infor- 
mation regarding the writer, and have then sought 
more or less candidly to explain the poem as more 
or less natural for such an author as Major de- 
scribed. 

Yet over fifty years ago Professor Craik wrote as 
follows: " Were it not for Major's statement, and 
the common epithet that has attached itself to his 
name, we should scarcely have supposed that the 
author of Wallace had been either blind from his 
birth or blind at all. He nowhere himself alludes to 



8 PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 

any such circumstance. His poem, besides, abounds 
in descriptive passages, and in allusions to natural 
appearances and other objects of sight, . . . Nor 
are his apparent literary acquirements to be very 
easily reconciled with Major's account. . . . What 
is most remarkable is that he distinctly declares 
his poem to be throughout a translation from the 
Latin." * 

This sort of questioning has of late grown in- 
sistent, and the discrepancy between the supposed 
character of the author and the actual character of 
the book has come to seem more and more incom- 
prehensible. That a simple wandering minstrel, 
blind from birth, relying on others' bounty for food 
and clothing, as Major depicts him, could have 
been the author of so sophisticated a book as the 
Wallace, a carefully -wrought poem of nearly twelve 
thousand lines, chiefly in heroic couplets, revealing 
close study of Chaucer, even to the introduction of 
the metre of his Complaint of Anelida upon Arcite 
and other intricate stanzas, stamped throughout 
with conventions of literary artifice, replete with 
foreign, aureate words, and displaying considerable 
knowledge of classical mythology, astrology and 
heraldry, is more than critics nowadays are ready 
to believe. 

The poet's blindness, however, remains a matter 
of sore dispute. Some, indeed, have shown im- 



PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 9 

patience with the unending discussion of the ques- 
tion, conceiving rather strangely that it was 
merely a side issue which had really no place in an 
estimate of the literary merit of the work; but they 
have not ventured to deny the fact itself. " The 
question," says Dr. Craigie, " has often been dis- 
cussed whether Blind Harry was really blind, or 
at least whether John Major was right in saying 
that he was blind from his birth. . . . That the 
minstrel was blind for a great part of his life must 
be accepted as certain, both from Major's testi- 
mony and from his name itself, but it is quite pos- 
sible that his blindness in earlier life may only have 
been partial. It is not uncommon even yet, es- 
pecially in country districts, to call people blind 
who have really only defective vision, and it is by 
no means beyond the bounds of possibility that the 
minstrel may never have been totally blind. But 
to make the poem any test of this seems a very 
precarious proceeding; we might with equal possi- 
bility assert that we have not Blind Harry's Wal- 
lace at all — neither the MS. nor the early editions 
say so ! " * 

In 1900, nevertheless, Mr. J. T. T. Brown at- 
tempted the precarious proceeding and stoutly 
maintained, on the basis of internal evidence, that 
we have not Blind Harry's Wallace at all, at least 
not in anything like its original form. In his Wal- 



10 PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 

lace and Bruce Restudied * is to be found the first 
reasoned repudiation of the poem as the unassisted 
work of a bhnd minstrel, save in so far as he might 
have resorted to dictation for its recording.! What 
appeared to Mr. Brown the most probable explana- 
tion of the situation, he put as follows: " Harry, a 
poor blind man, dwelling in or near Linlithgow, was 
one of the numerous class of itinerant performers 
who obtained admission occasionally to the Court 
in order to amuse the King and courtiers. His 
special talent was that of a raconteur of gests re- 
lating to William Wallace, folk stories picked up 
on his journeyings and turned by him into verse. 
It may very well be that in Harry we have the 
begetter of The Wallace, his metrical effusions sug- 
gesting to the clerk John Ramsay a theme for a 
national epic worthy to be in some measure com- 
plementary to The Bruce of John Barbour." 

This hypothesis of combined authorship has 
found no favor with scholars, and Ramsay has been 
rightly denied any part in the composition of the 
poem. J Still, though certain reviewers have in- 
clined to accept as final Mr. Brown's arguments 
against Blind Harry as alone responsible for the 
work, § the general trend of criticism remains much 
as before. " The hypothesis that best fits the 
whole circumstances of the case," writes Mr. T. 
F. Henderson, in his popular book on Scottish 



PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 11 

Vernacular Literature* " is that Harry — other- 
wise nameless except as ' Blind ' — was, as Major 
states, blind from his birth, and, as he himself re- 
cords, a ' burel,' or milearned man." Mr. Hender- 
son even continues to urge the author's blindness, 
humble position, and ignorance as an explanation 
of certain unfortunate characteristics of the poem. 
" For much of the preposterousness of Harry's 
stories — especially his amazing accounts of com- 
bats — his blindness must be held responsible. 
He could not recognize the sheer impossibility of 
many of his glosses or inventions." " Of course, 
being but a minstrel, Harry has the special defects 
of the minstrel's qualities. Compare the Wallace, 
for example, with Barbour's Bruce, or Henryson's 
Fables, and the general inferiority of calibre pro- 
claims Harry to have been but a ' burel ' man. An 
accomplished minstrel, it is true — though repre- 
senting minstrelsy in its decadence, minstrelsy 
divorced from chivalry, — and saturated with vari- 
ous poetic influences and traditions; also, it is clear, 
of robust personality, and animated with much 
rough poetic ardour, but devoid of true intellectual 
discipline as of consistent moral dignity; wofully, 
if not wilfully, heedless of patent historic facts; 
childishly credulous, and combining with a certain 
rugged pathos a braggardism that is frankly, and 
even fervently, brutal." Not unnaturally, when 



12 PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 

one considers all the supposed facts that he tried 
to reconcile, Mr. Henderson was forced to the con- 
clusion: "Both Blind Harry and his poem are 
something of a conundrum." 

The latest scholarly judgment on the subject in 
print is that of Mr. George Neilson, who, in an illu- 
minating essay published in 1910,* speaks of the 
Wallace as "a conscious heroic poem of a type elab- 
orate, ambitious, and highly developed," which 
" bears too many marks of distinctly literary ori- 
gins to have been written by one who was congeni- 
tally blind." Yet, while Mr. Neilson admits that 
" a greater gulf than usual stands between the 
poem and the poet," it never occurred to him to 
dispute the traditional conception of " Henry the 
Minstrel," who, he holds certain, was blind in his 
later years. On the other hand. Professor Francis 
Lane Childs, in an admirable Harvard thesis of 
the year 1913, still unpublished,! goes so far as to 
deny Harry's authorship of the poem; but he does 
not question the blind minstrel's actual existence. 

My point of view is different. I assume that the 
author of the Wallace was called Blind Harry ; but 
I believe that he was not a minstrel at all in the 
ordinary acceptation of the term, and that he was 
never blind. I venture to hold that Blind Harry 
was only the author's pseudonym, and I shall try 
to establish the existence in myth and show the 



PROBLEM OF BLIND HARRY 13 

nature of the strange personage who has always 
been treated as the real author of the work. This 
will necessitate a consideration of many documents 
of divers lands and ages, which should prove of 
interest for its own sake, as well as for its bearing 
on the immediate problem in hand. The inquiry 
will lead, I hope, to significant conclusions as to 
mythical bards of far greater repute than Blind 
Harry, but it will aim first to throw light on the 
background, character, and value of the Wallace, 
a true understanding of which has hitherto been 
limited by misapprehensions regarding the manner 
of its composition. 



CHAPTER II 

Major's Evidence 

But all is dark 
Around thine aged top, and thy clear fount 
Exhales in mists to heaven. 

Endymion 

DESPITE the fact that no name is attached to 
the Wallace in the unique copy made by the 
scribe John Ramsay in 1488,* or apparently in the 
earhest editions, we have strong evidence that it 
passed current from the start as BHnd Harry's 
work. Dunbar, as is well known, mentions Blind 
Harry among the " makaris " who were dead be- 
fore he wrote his famous Lament, in 1507, and no 
one doubts that this poet is identical with the 
writer of the same name to whom, as we have seen, 
Major,t in 1521, attributes a " whole book " about 
Wallace, " written with great skill in vernacular 
rhymes " during the historian's lifetime; or that 
he was the author of the " Blind Harry's Book " 
to which Bellenden in his paraphrase of Hector 
Boece's history (1536), | and William Stewart in 
his metrical Book of the Chronicles of Scotland (1531- 
35) § refer as one where the " fashion " of Wallace's 
youthful deeds was " all declared at great length." 



MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 15 

While, then, there is no absolute proof that the 
poet Blind Harry, Dunbar's predecessor, wrote the 
Wallace, the evidence in favor of its ascription to 
him, made unhesitatingly by the faithful Major 
within forty years of the composition of the work, 
and perpetuated without controversy for almost 
four hundred years, is sufficiently clear to convince 
all but the most skeptical, and we may proceed con- 
fidently on the assumption that it is correct. The 
present study will offer new confirmation of the 
orthodox view, explaining why the name of the 
poet, far from needing to raise difficulties, was a 
natural and appropriate one for him to bear. First, 
however, we must cut at the roots the prevalent 
conception (based solely, it would seem, even at 
the beginning, on improper inferences drawn from 
that name) that the author was actually an indi- 
gent blind bard. 

Major's statements about Blind Harry appear 
in his History of Greater Britain. Major when he 
undertook this work was a man over fifty,* and had 
spent nearly all his mature years as a student and 
professor at Paris. He had gained a reputation 
there as a teacher of theology, and not until 1518 
was persuaded to return to Scotland to live. He 
then became Regent of a college at Glasgow, Pro- 
fessor of Theology, and Treasurer of the Chapel 
Royal. In 1523 he was transferred to St. Andrews, 



16 MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 

but returned to Paris in 1525. He wrote his book 
as a relief from more arduous scholastic labors, 
primarily attracted by the opportunity it afforded 
to teach lessons of proper ethical attitude, rebuke 
current uncritical views of past events, and advo- 
cate the union by royal marriage of the realms of 
England and Scotland. Major was a well-meaning 
and in many respects an enlightened person, but of 
a type not uncommon among academic folk, in- 
clined in case of dispute to take the middle way. 
His biographer. Dr. Mackay, was quite right in 
saying that " balancing, hesitating, and inconclu- 
sive judgment is very characteristic of Major's 
intellect," * but only partially right in adding: 
" With regard to the facts of his History, Major 
shows a wonderfully sound historical instinct, dis- 
tinguishing truth from the fables with which the 
Scottish annals were then encrusted." Major, no 
doubt, desired to distinguish truth from fable, and 
pompously put on parade his judicial mind; but 
he showed himself very gullible in regard to legends 
and took all sorts of mythical persons for real. He 
believed, for example, that the inhabitants of 
Rochester were actually inflicted with tails because 
they mocked St. Augustine, but he declined to as- 
sert that the penalty lasted and that children were 
born with tails. He did not question the existence 
of Robin Hood (Robertus Hudus) and Little John, 



MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 17 

whom he put in the time of Richard I, but he 
bravely condemned their robberies. He solemnly 
entered into argument whether it could be true 
that St. Baldred was buried entire in three dif- 
ferent churches.* 

As a proud schoolman of Paris, Major naturally 
assumed that anything written in the vernacular 
of his land was beneath his praise. He quotes fre- 
quently from Froissart, and refers to Monstrelet 
with respect; but the only historical works he 
greatly valued were in Latin. " Not even every- 
thing that is written in Latin," he says, " has a 
claim to infallibility, but only to a certain probabil- 
ity; for some of the writings in that language are 
known to possess more, and others less, of au- 
thority." 

If one scrutinizes Major's account of Wallace, 
one soon sees that he used Blind Harry's poem (it 
had been printed thirteen years) far more than he 
was willing to admit. f Though he denies its credi- 
bility in certain respects, he accepts the general 
features of the hero's portrait, and certain inci- 
dents as there alone presented. 

After having actually based his narrative to a 
considerable degree on his "vulgar" authority, his 
critical judgment yielding under the stress of his 
willingness to believe, he salves his conscience by 
a proud display of judicial protest against a few 



18 MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 

features of Blind Harry's story which are so pre- 
posterous that it is doubtful if they were ever 
really credited, even by the most patriotic of the 
time. And he winds up as follows: "There was 
one Henry, blind from his birth, who, in the time 
of my childhood, composed a whole book about 
William Wallace, and therein he wrote down in 
our native rhymes — and this was a kind of com- 
position in which he had much skill — all that 
passed current among the people in his day. I, 
however, can give but a partial credence to such 
writings as these. This Henry used to recite his 
tales in the households of the nobles, and thereby 
got the food and clothing that he deserved." * 

In these words lies the whole basis for the legend 
of the poet Blind Harry. Even the most ardent 
Scot, even the stoutest admirer of the Wallace, 
must admit that there is nothing whatever in the 
work itself to justify belief that it was composed 
by a blind person such as Major describes. Mr. 
Neilson voiced the general opinion when he said in 
1910: "It is hardly possible to believe that the 
author of the Wallace was blind from birth. It is 
infinitely more likely that Major blundered in say- 
ing so." But if Major blundered in this respect, 
why not in others .f' If, as should be clear to all, the 
author could not have been blind from his birth, 
then we are entitled to take questioningly Major's 



MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 19 

other patronizing statement, supported by no one 
else, that " this Henry used to recite his tales in the 
households of the nobles, and thereby got the food 
and clothing which he deserved." Though Major 
does not perhaps explicitly aflfirm it, the " tales " 
he says Harry recited have always been taken to be 
identical with the " whole book " on Wallace which 
the critic has just described. Yet there is almost as 
grave a difficulty in accepting the view that the 
cultivated poet of the Wallace — Major himself 
noted the great skill of the verse — went about 
reciting his tales, even coram principibiis* for food 
and clothing, as that he was blind from birth. 
Major does not pretend to have known Blind 
Harry. He was an infant, he says, when the poet 
wrote, and he had gone as a young man to Paris, 
where he had lived for most of the intervening 
stretch of twenty-five years wholly absorbed in 
scholastic pursuits. For Scottish vernacular poetry 
he had little leisure and less respect. Quite evi- 
dently, he did not know anything definite about 
the author of the Wallace, and probably only 
imagined what he said of him after consideration 
of his name. 

There is one blind poet who since Major's time 
has leapt into everyone's mind at the mention of 
Blind Harry, namely Homer. Major was well ac- 
quainted with Homer, as is shown by his repeated 



20 MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 

references to him in other works.* Very naturally 
he might have connected the two blind singers, and 
transferred to the one what he had read of the 
other. According to the traditionary story of Ho- 
mer,! " he was a wandering minstrel, blind and old, 
who travelled from place to place singing his lays 
to the music of his harp, in the courts of princes or 
the cottages of peasants, — a dependent upon the 
voluntary offerings of his hearers." This tradition 
of Homer embodies all that Major says of Harry, 
save that Harry was blind from birth, which, we 
have seen, is the most incredible thing in his whole 
account. That account is entirely lacking in any 
details that would serve to connect the author of 
the Wallace with any particular person or place, and 
is no doubt merely an echo of Major's learning. 

Major was given to classical parallels. He likens 
Wallace in different respects to Ulysses, Ajax, and 
Achilles,J and once, speaking of the British belief 
in the return of Arthur, which he compares with 
that of the return of Charles of Burgundy and 
James IV of Scotland, he writes significantly: 
" Hence you can understand the readiness with 
which the common people believed the Stygian 
Jupiter, Hercules, and such men as that sort of 
people is prone to marvel at, to be immortal; and 
how the wiser sort, who knew the groundlessness 
of this belief, were yet unwilling to go contrary to 



MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 21 

it, lest the ignorant in their indignation should 
destroy them," * a wise recognition of the force be- 
hind the perpetuation of legend and fable. We shall 
do well to remember throughout this investigation 
the tenacity with which " the common people " 
have everywhere held to beliefs in mythical beings, 
no matter why scholars have failed to deny their 
existence altogether. 

Apropos of James I, Major remarks: " With the 
harp, like another Orpheus, he surpassed the Irish 
or the Wild Scots, who are in that art pre-emin- 
ent."! If James I reminded Major of Orpheus, it 
is not surprising that Blind Harry reminded him of 
Homer. But still more important to observe is his 
witness to the consideration that learned men of 
the time paid the poetry of the Irish or the Wild 
Scots, and their effort to connect Gaelic with Greek 
traditions. 

Major differentiates carefully between the 
" Southern " and the " Wild " Scots in language 
and race. He points out that even then almost the 
half of Scotland spoke Irish, " and not so long ago," 
he adds, " it was spoken by the majority of us." 
He records how " a certain Scot of the mountains, 
such as they call a Wild Scot, hoary with age," ap- 
peared at the coronation of King Alexander, and 
in his native Irish tongue declared the monarch's 
genealogy up to the first beginning. " Man by man. 



22 MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 

without a break this said Wild Scot recounted the 
said genealogy, until he arrived at the first Irish 
Scot who, setting out from the Ebro, a river of 
the Spains, was the first to set foot in Ireland."* 
Earlierf the pious historian had taken pains to re- 
late stories from the old chronicles about Nealus 
King of the Greeks and his son Gathelus, who mar- 
ried a daughter of Pharaoh of Egypt, by name 
Scota, and after Pharaoh's drowning went to Spain, 
journeying thence to Hibernia. He did not admit 
the truth of all these stories, but he held it certain 
" that the Irish are descended from the Spaniards 
and the Scottish Britons from the Irish." 

Such traditions, evidently, were accepted also 
by the author of the Wallace, who speaks of Ed- 
ward I and the way he carried the coronation 
stone of Scone to England, as follows: 

The croune he tuk apon that sammyne stane 
At Gadalos send with his sone fra Spane, 
Quhen Iber Scot fyrst in till Irland come. 
At Canemor syne king Fergus has it nome; 
Brocht it till Scwne, and stapill maid it thar,J 
Quhar kingis was cround viij hundyr ^er and mar, 
Befor the tyme at king Eduuard it fand. 

There was, in truth, great activity in the fif- 
teenth century on the part of the Highland clans in 
connecting themselves with Gaelic ancestors. § In 
the manuscript genealogies of that time, one group 



MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 23 

of these (including the Macdonalds, Macdougals, 
Macneills, Maclauchlans, and Macewens) were 
made out to be descendants of a fabulous Irish 
monarch, Conn of the Hundred Battles, to whom 
Blind Harry appears to allude in his genealogical 
introduction to the Wallace, where he remarks: 
"as Conus corny klis bers on hand" — an allusion 
never hitherto explained,* yet suggestive as further 
indicating the author's literary interest. 

In the fifteenth century the Highlanders were 
very much in the thought of other Scots, and 
continued so even after the Lordship of the Isles 
was abolished in 1545. James IV made frequent 
visits to the north and west of his realm, and found 
a knowledge of Gaelic a useful accomplishment.! 
In the west particularly, there then existed a veri- 
table school of bards (in touch with the sennachies 
of Ireland) whom courtly poets were wont to ridi- 
cule. Holland, in his Howlat,t represents the rook 
as " a bard out of Ireland " madly talking Gaelic — 
a passage which evidently became popular, for 
Blind Harry shows his acquaintance with it, and 
Montgomery imitated it in his Answer to a High- 
landman's Invective.^ Dunbar was so notorious for 
his abuse of the Erse that Kennedy's rebuke to 
him in their famous Flyting was a pointed shaft: 

Thovv lufis nane Irische, elf, I vnderstand, 
Bot it suld be all trew Scottis mennis lede; 



24 MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 

It was the gud langage of this land. 
And Scota it causit to multiply and sprede, 
Quhill Corspatrick that we of tressoun reid, 
Thy forefader, maid Irisch and Irisch men thin, 
Throw his tressoun broght Inglise rumplis in, 
Sa wald thy self, mycht thou to him succede.* 

Dunbar most effectively ridicules the Erse in the 
Highland pageant he introduces into his Dance of 
the Seven Deadly Sins, where he refers to the com- 
rades of a traitor MacFadden, of whom Blind 
Harry tells : when he cried his coronach in hell — 

Erschemen so gadderit him abowt, 
In hell grit rowme thay tuke. 

Thae tarmegantis, with tag and tatter, 

Ffull lowd in Ersche begowth to clatter. 

And rowp lyk revin and ruke: 

The Devill sa devit wes with thair 3ell, 

That in the depest pit of hell 

He smorit thame with smvke.f 

Though Dunbar's references to the Erse are per- 
haps in the main humorous, not really revealing 
that " strong aversion " critics speak about, they 
surely attest the poet's interest in the Highlanders 
and their traditions, which is a point of importance 
in our investigation. He, as well as Kennedy, had 
a strong appetite for " sic eloquence as thay in 
Erschry vse." 

The Scotch-Irish question kept burning a con- 
siderable while, and Sir David Lyndsay in the 



MAJOR'S EVIDENCE 25 

Monarchie * declared that, after his " conceit," if 
St. Jerome had been born in Argyle he would have 
" done compile " his books in the Irish tongue. As 
a result of the agitation, stories in the Irish tongue 
no doubt gained wider currency. 

Knowledge of Blind Harry begins and ends with 
Major and Dunbar. Major in his History gives 
the first sure evidence of his connection with the 
Wallace, and Dunbar in his Lament gives the first 
sure testimony to his existence as a poet. But if we 
had only these two references we should have no 
key to the problem of Blind Harry already defined. 
We must turn to another poem by Dunbar for the 
help needed. It will guide us to that prime re- 
quisite for an understanding of the Wallace, an 
understanding of the author's assumed name. 



CHAPTER III 

The Dwarf's Part of the Play 

That Dwarf was scarcely an earthly man, 
If the tales were true, that of him ran 
Through all the Border, far and near. 

Lay of the Last Minstrel 

OFTEN mentioned in connection with Blind 
Harry, is a " Little Interlude " attributed to 
Dunbar, entitled The Droichis [Dwarfs] Part of the 
Play, or " The Manner of the Crying of a Play," 
probably written about 1500.* Though highly fan- 
tastic and coarse, this poem possesses general in- 
terest for the folklore material it contains, as well 
as for the vigor of its style and the fact that it is the 
earliest extant specimen of dramatic verse in Scots. 
Here a Dwarf makes a whirlwind appearance on 
the stage, crying " See who is come now! " 
promptly announces that he is a sergeant out of 
Sultan-land, or " the spirit of Guy," or one who 
can "go by the sky, light as the lind." " Yet," 
he adds: 

I trowe that I wary; 
I am the nakit Blynd Hary, 
That lang has bene in the Fary, 

Farleis to fynd.f 



THE DWARF'S PART 27 

It is, indeed, one of the mysteries of criticism 
that every commentator on this passage has seen 
in it an allusion by name to the author of the Wal- 
lace. In his learned edition of Dunbar, Professor 
Schipper wrote: " The poet Blind Harry, or Henry 
the Minstrel, the author of the famous epic poem 
' William Wallace,' seems to be alluded to here as 
a popular personage." Just what Professor Schip- 
per meant by " a popular personage " is not clear; 
but surely, to be able to identify the Dwarf with 
the author of the Wallace, he must have given 
scant consideration to the former's account of 
himself. The Dwarf is particular to affirm that he 
came of no mortal race. His fore-grandsire, he 
tells us, was the Ossianic hero whom we have come 
to know as Fingal: 

Fyn Mac Kowie 
That dang the devill, and gart [made] him Jowle, 
The skyis ranyd quhen he wald scowle, 

He trublit all the air. 

His grandsire was Gog Magog, who, when he grew 
up, had a mouth eleven miles wide and teeth ten 
ells square. 

He wald upon his tais stand, 
And tak the sternis doune with his hand. 
And set them in a gold garland 
Above his wyfis hair.* 



28 THE DWARF'S PART 

Gog's wife was an unholy terror. " She spit Loch 
Lomond with her lips," and performed still stiffer 
deeds, too indecent to repeat. And the Dwarf's 
father, Gow Mackmorne, was so huge a champion 
that he had to be cut even from her womb. 

Or he of eld was 3eris thre, 
He wald stepe our the Occeane se; 
The mone sprang nevir above his kne; 
The hevyn had of him feir. 

As for the Dwarf himself, he was older than King 
Arthur or Gawain, and now all shrivelled-up for 
age — " this little, as ye may see." 

" The genius of wealth," wrote Professor Schip- 
per,* *' is here represented under the character of 
a dwarfish minstrel, who introduces himself, it is 
true, as the well-known poet Blind Harry, but who 
probably was nobody else but Dunbar himself, 
whose stature must have been very small." f Dr. 
Mackay went one step farther and declared it pos- 
sible " that Dunbar himself may have acted as well 
as written the part of the Dwarf; " J and Mr. 
Brown followed on with the remark that if the poet 
was himself a dwarf, " his recitation of gests re- 
counting the prowess of the national hero would 
doubtless be all the more mirth-provoking on that 
account." Such speculation was unjustified. But 
the following comment by Professor Schipper 
reached the lowest level of conjecture: " From the 



THE DWARF'S PART 29 

epithet nakit connected with his [Blind Harry's] 
name in this verse, it would appear that the old 
minstrel lived in needy circumstances during the 
later years of his life, when the infirmities of old 
age may have hindered him from continuing his 
occupation, wandering from one nobleman's seat 
to the other and reciting pieces of his poems there." 
This conclusion is really bewildering, both in its 
initial assumption and in its ridiculous develop- 
ment. One who had before him only the three lines 
above quoted, in which the name Blind Harry ap- 
pears, might perhaps carelessly think they con- 
tained a reference, though a very puzzling one, to 
an actual poet; but how an editor of the complete 
text could stumble into so deep a pit of error is hard 
to comprehend. Especially is that the case when 
one realizes that Professor Schipper understood the 
meaning of the words in the passage.* Mr. Brown, 
on the contrary, made a grave mistake in translat- 
ing them. " The Littill Interlud," the latter says, 
" seems to belong to some lost masque ... in 
which a dwarf personating Blynd Harry was 
brought in. After introducing himself as a ' Sultan 
from Syria, a giant that by the strength of his own 
hand could bind bears,' he goes on to say that he 
' warrants himself to be the naked Blynd Harry 
who has long been on the road in quest of strange 
stories.' Fary or fare is simply way, road, journey; 



30 THE DWARF'S PART 

and Major's quae vulgo dicehantur exactly corre- 
sponds to the ' farleis,' or wonderful stories of the 
prowess of Wallace, floating in tradition and picked 
up by the way by the wandering minstrel." * But 
" fary," of course, is merely " faery," fairyland,! 
and " farleis " means " wonders." Both these words 
are used in the familiar line at the opening of Piers 
Plowman: " Me byfel a ferly, of fairy me thou3te." 
Quite obviously the passage only says: " I am the 
naked Blind Harry that have been long in faery to 
find ferlys." There is nothing whatever in the poem 
that can reasonably be construed as a reference to 
the author of the Wallace, and the interpretation 
which makes the lines under discussion mean 
" Blynd Harry who has long been on the road in 
quest of strange stories " of the prowess of Wal- 
lace, is astonishingly wrong. 

These lines, nevertheless, are vitally important 
to a proper understanding of the Scottish poet's 
name. They afford us unquestionable proof that in 
Dunbar's time, shortly after the Wallace was writ- 
ten, a mythical person called Blind Harry was re- 
puted to have been long in faery and seen wonders. 

Though no one should ask for more proof than 
Dunbar's allusion to accept Blind Harry as a figure 
in myth, many may need to be made acquainted 
with popular traditions concerning faery, the visits 
of mortals there, and the role of faery dwarfs in 



THE DWARF'S PART 31 

fiction, before they can fully recognize the signifi- 
cance of that allusion in settling the immediate 
question of the authorship of the Wallace, or per- 
ceive how from a consideration of tales of other- 
world life important conclusions may be drawn 
with regard to the ancient blind bards who so often 
appear as mouthpieces of epic story, as well as to 
the mysterious wise men who for ages have voiced 
others' prophecies. 

Let us however, begin, our inquiry, tending to 
that end, by a more careful scrutiny of The Dwarf's 
Part of the Play than has heretofore been given 
that unique and most interesting poem. The re- 
sults should be worth while in themselves, as ex- 
plaining the work of Dunbar and its pagan Celtic 
background, but still more so, for our present pur- 
pose, as revealing the character of Blind Harry, the 
personage of fiction. 

The Interlude, it is evident, was intended not 
simply to convey good wishes to its hearers, the 
magistrates of Edinburgh, but to arouse their 
mirth. Its Brobdingnagian humor was calcu- 
lated to appeal to men at a gay assembly, and the 
poet's exaggerated account of the exploits of Blind 
Harry's Gaelic ancestors was certainly the more 
appreciated by an audience who knew the fine old 
tales concerning that illustrious band. Dunbar's 
mood in dealing with these worthies is not unlike 



32 THE DWARF'S PART 

that of the author of the modern song about the 
famous Cumhail (pronounced Cool), the Dwarf's 
great-grandsire : 

Old King Cole was a merry old soul, 
And a merry old soul was he. 

It is merely jocular, amiably bacchic. Dunbar was 
a jovial old-time Scot, and his words are a bit 
pungent for our taste, but they imply real knowl- 
edge on his part of the traditions he treats freely. 
The Interlude, as should first be noted, is merely 
a monologue in which a grotesque supernatural 
being utters pretensions of what seem a preposter- 
ous nature, and finally interprets himself allegori- 
cally as Wealth, a symbol of gifts he has the power 
to dispense. The Dwarf * tells his hearers that he 
was born far forth in the deserts of Ind, among 
lions and bears, yet (as has already been men- 
tioned) that he derived directly from ancient 
Gaels. He had lived as much as a thousand years. 
Worthy King Arthur, we are informed, and Ga- 
wain, and many a bold bairn of Britain, had died 
and in the wars been slain since he could wield a 
spear. By his explicit statement, we learn that he 
went through " variations "; he changed his shape. 
Now he was a sergeant out of Sultan-land, now the 
ghost of Guy, now naked Blind Harry; he could 
" fly by the sky, and light as the lind." 



THE DWARF'S PART S3 

I half bene formest evir in feild, 
And now sa lang I haif borne sheild, 
That I am crynit in for eild 

This littill, as ^e may sie. 
I haif bene banist vndir the lynd 
This lang tyme, that nane cowld me fynd, 
Quhill now with this last eistin wynd, 

I am cum heir perdie. 

He had come to Scotland, he knew never how — 
" with the whirlwind "! 

In this work, if I mistake not, Dunbar shows fa- 
miliarity with an old Celtic type of poem, voicing 
pre-Christian animistic beliefs, of which we have 
two extant specimens, put respectively into the 
mouths of the mythical Irish and Welsh shape- 
shifting bards Amergin and Taliessin. 

What is supposed to be one of the most ancient 
of Irish literary records * is the poem represented 
as uttered by the former, druid-wizard of the fabu- 
lous Milesian settlers when these first landed in 
Erin. I am this and that, proclaims Amergin, 
mentioning many beings and things. " I am a cun- 
ning artist; I am a gigantic, sword- wielding cham- 
pion; I can shift my shape like a god. ... I am a 
bard who is called upon by seafarers to prophesy. 
... I prophesy victory. I end my song by pro- 
phesying all other good things." 

Likewise Taliessin, then a weak little man, is 
made to sing of numerous aspects of himself. " I 



34 THE DWARF'S PART 

have been in many shapes," he begins, " before I 
attained a congenial form "; whereupon he enum- 
erates these at length.* According to his proud as- 
sertion in another poem, he had been everywhere 
from heaven to hell, with all sorts and conditions 
of men, from the beginning of the world. 

I was with my Lord in the liighest sphere, 

On the fall of Lucifer into the depth of hell. 

I have borne a banner before Alexander; . . . 

I was in the court of Don before the birth of Gwydion. 

I was instructor to Eli and Enoc. . . . 

I am a wonder whose origin is not known; 

I have been in Asia with Noah in the Ark; 

I have seen the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra; . . . 

I am now come here f to the remnant of Troia. . . . 

I shall be until the day of doom on the face of the earth; 

And it is not known whether my body is flesh or fish. 

The significance of Taliessin's boasts as reveal- 
ing mythical notions of the origins of poesy, we 
shall dwell on later. The importance of his claims 
in showing his superhuman character does not 
need to be stressed. He had been in faery. He knew 
all about otherworld dwarfs. He appeared as a 
" little man " himself, and spoke of his ancestry 
and varying forms. 

Amergin and Taliessin are dignified representa- 
tives of numerous beings with like attributes who 
meet us at every turn in Celtic folklore; with them 
too we need acquaintance if we would fully under- 



THE DWARF'S PART 35 

stand Dunbar's poem. Perhaps the most nearly 
cognate in popular Gaelic tradition is a familiar 
spirit named Luridan who, we are informed,* 
dwelt in the Orkney Isle of Pomona in the char- 
acter of Brownie: " This Luridan affirmed that 
he was the genius astral of that island; that his 
place or residence in the days of Solomon and 
David was at Jerusalem; that then he was called 
by the Jews Belelah [Belial]; after that, he re- 
mained long in the dominion of Wales, instructing 
their bards in British poesy and prophecies, being 
called Urthin Wadd Elgin; ' and now,' said he, ' I 
have removed hither, and, alas! my continuance 
is but short, for in seventy years I must resign my 
place to Balkin, lord of the Northern mountains.' 
Many wonderful and incredible things did he also 
relate of this Balkin . . . affirming that he was 
shaped like a satyr, and fed upon the air, having 
wife and children to the number of twelve thou- 
sand, which were the brood of the Northern Fairies, 
inhabiting Sutherland and Caithness, with the 
adjacent islands . . . that their speech was an- 
cient Irish, and their dwelling the caverns of the 
rocks and mountains." 

In another form of this tradition,! Luridan, 
" spirit of the air," is said to have come over with 
Julius Caesar and remained " some hundred of 
years " in Wales, whence he betook himseK to the 



36 THE DWARF'S PART 

North in the year 1500. When conjured up, it is 
said, he will appear " like a little dwarf with a 
crooked nose," and can go in an hour " whither 
he will, to the Turks or to the uttermost parts of 
the earth." Balkin, similarly conjured up, will ap- 
pear " like the great god Bacchus upon a little 
goat," preceded by an innumerable company of 
dwarfs. He will deliver to the exorcist " a little 
spirit of a span long, like a little Ethiop," which 
will become a familiar to his possessor and may be 
named as the latter likes. 

The identification of Luridan with Brownie 
(though brownies were not then mere playthings 
as now) illustrates the way myth is regularly de- 
graded and suggests the various kinds of super- 
natural beings with whom Dunbar was acquainted. 
The number of uncanny spirits abroad in his time 
was legion. Reginald Scot enumerates enough in 
the following passage: * *' Our mothers' maids," 
he says, " have so frayed us with bull-beggars, 
spirits, witches, urchins, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, 
pans, fauns, silens, kit-with-the-canstick, tritons, 
centaurs, dwarfs, giants, imps, calcars, . . . Robin 
Goodfellow, the spoorn, the mare, the man-in-the- 
oak, the hell-wain, the firedrake, the puckle, . . . 
Tom Tumbler, Boneless, and such other bugs, that 
we are afraid of our own shadows." All of these 
creatures of the imagination were evidently causes 



THE DWARF'S PART 37 

of terror to the people, and against them children 
particularly were continuously warned to " watch 
out." The " bug," a name (probably from the 
Welsh hwg — Irish 'puca, a spectre) that we still 
preserve in our bugbear, bugaboo, and bogy, was 
but another form of " puck." Langland includes a 
" helle-pouke " among things and beings that 
" grieve " men but that Love disarms {Caritas ex- 
pellit omnem timorem ").* Likewise, Spenser wrote: 

Ne let the pouke nor other evil sprites, 
Ne let mischievous witches with their charms, 
Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not, 
Fray us with things that be not.f 

With such facts in mind, we are not surprised 

to have Dunbar make his roguish, shape-shifting, 

aerial Dwarf exclaim: 

Quha is cum heir bot I, 
A bawld busteous bellomy, 
Amang 30W all to cry a cry 
With ane michty soun ? 

Satyrs and Pans are associated with dwarfs and 
fairies in Scot's list of " bugs," or pucks, and Dun- 
bar was too good a classical scholar not to recall 
these ancient daemonic figures when he wrote. 
The little old naked god Pan, reputed son of 
Hermes, has long been a particularly well-known 
and popular figure in Great Britain, and his name 
has given us a common word that everyone now 



38 THE DWARF'S PART 

uses without thought of its origin. Pan, scholars at 
least remember, like Puck, had a way of frighten- 
ing folk by suddenly appearing among them, crying 
fiercely, and thus creating a " panic." He even 
frightened the Titans in their fight with the gods. 
The Dwarf, then, who came on the stage " with 
the whirlwind," crying a cry amongst the audience 
" with a mighty sound," might naturally call him- 
self " a bold busteous bellamy " if bellamy,* the 
male counterpart of beldame, had come to mean 
in Scots a terrifying creature, as is clearly indicated 
by the following words in Blind Harry's Wallace, 
where, unless I misread the passage, the hero is 
represented as taken for one by an English soldier: 

The capteyne speryt: ' Quhat bellamy may thow be. 
That cummys so grym ? ' f 

And there may be more than appears on the surface 
in the Dwarf's statement regarding himself, im- 
mediately after his calling attention to his Panic 
attribute: 

That generit am of Gyanis kynd, 
Fra the strong Hercules be strynd; 
Of al the Occident and ynd 
My elderis woir the croun. 

Undoubtedly it made the groundlings laugh to 
hear a dwarf declare he was engendered of giant 
race, though they perhaps remembered Wee Wee 



THE DWARF'S PART 39 

Man of popular ballad fame * who had incredible 
strength; and fairy-land and giant-land were to 
them much the same. But Dunbar apparently 
knew of a deeper connection. Hercules was said 
to have come to the West and established a sov- 
ereignty,! and the poet Alexander Scott makes 
him perform exactly the feat that Dunbar ascribes 
to the Dwarf's fore-grandsire: 

Hercules, that aikkis vprent 

And dang the devill of hell. J 

To judge from the assertions of the Dwarf, that 
he was born " far forth in the deserts of Ind," 
and that of all Occident and Ind his elders wore 
the crown, he was of the same race as the faery 
King Oberon, and Shakespeare's Puck, who came 
to Athens " from the farthest steep of Ind," while 
there is much to link him with the famous Robin 
Goodfellow. No elvish figure is more familiar to us 
than Robin, " merry wanderer of the nighl ," the 
shrewd and knavish spirit " that frights the maid- 
ens of the villagery," whose mad pranks and merry 
jests are found perpetuated in a tract printed in 
1628.§ To these jests and pranks he is there said to 
have been stimulated by his faery father, who thus 
reveals the boy's power to him: 

By nature thou hast cunning shifts, 
Which I '11 increase with other gifts. 
Wish what thou wilt, thou shalt it have; 



40 THE DWARF'S PART 

And for to vex both fool and knave. 
Thou hast the power to change thy shape, 
To horse, to hog, to dog, to ape. 

Robin (otherwise called Hobgoblin) does, indeed, 
many incredible things by turning himself into 
" divers sundry shapes," such as, in one prank, 
into a bird, horse, and fish, and at other times into 
various human forms.* We should note particu- 
larly that he appears as a ghost, with a torch in his 
hand, to frighten an old usurer into liberality, and 
as a bard. 

Robin, it will be remembered, was a naked 
dwarf, and resented being offered clothes by a maid 
whom he had helped to break hemp. 

Because thou lay'st me, himpen, hampen, 
I will neither bolt nor stampen; 
'T is not your garments new or old. 
That Robin loves: I feel no cold. 

To have the royal dwarf Blind Harry described 
as naked, need cause us, then, no surprise. As we 
read in an amusing Scottish burlesque contem- 
porary with the Interlude, a curiously transformed 
bit of folklore telling of Berdok, King of Babylon, 
another shape-shifter who found ferlys in faery: 

Kingis vsit nocht to weir clayis [clothes] in tha dayis 
But 3eid [went] nakit, as myne auctor sayis; 
Weill cowd he play in clarschocht and on lute.f 

Faery dwarfs were skilled in minstrelsy. 



THE DWARF'S PART 41 

We shall now much better understand the varia- 
tions of Dunbar's Dwarf, who declared he was not 
only the naked Blind Harry, who had long been in 
faery, but a sergeant out of Sultan-land, who could 
bind bears by the strength of his hand. In making 
this latter association, Dunbar had evidently in 
mind some such figure as that of the Turk in the 
curious little romance of The Turk and Gawain,"^ 
where the Turk is a dwarf, possessed of a cloak of 
invisibility, and of bewildering strength, who leads 
the hero through a hill into the underworld and 
then performs marvellous feats on his behalf. He 
shows Gawain the residence of the king of the Isle 
of Man,t whom he declares to be " a heathen Sul- 
tan," commanding a hideous rout of giants. 

Many auentures thou shalt see there 
Such as thou neuer saw yare 
In all the world about. 

So this dwarf from Sultan-land addresses the 
knight, who was also to find ferlys in faery. The 
Turk, we learn, was under a spell and sought aid 
from a mortal. Thanks to Ga wain's mediation, he 
overcame his enemies, and himself became king of 
the Isle. 

Still another of the Dwarf's variations was " the 
Ghost of Guy," % a spirit-personage, whose asso- 
ciation with Blind Harry and the otherworld Turk 
is of great interest. 



42 THE DWARF'S PART 

Guy was a citizen of Alexti, near Bayonne, 
" whose ghost when his body was buried, without 
sightly form, appeared to his own wife and tor- 
mented her greatly, eight days after his burying." 
Inasmuch " as she ne wist whether it were a gylerie 
of the fiend or no," she asked counsel of the prior 
of the monastery near by. He too was afraid that 
it might be a " gylerie of the fiend," houseled a 
large company that no harm might come to them, 
and went to converse with the troubled spirit. The 
ghost was only " a mere voice and small as of a 
child," which followed the prior " as the sound of 
a broom sweeping a pavement "; but it carried on 
a long argument with the prior and gave him much 
information about evil spirits and purgatory " in 
the middle of the earth." It explained that fiends 
have a way of appearing to dying men to draw 
them from their belief " by grinding of their teeth 
and their grimly and grisly looks." The Virgin has 
power over these fiends because she is " Queen of 
Heaven, and Lady of the World, and Empress of 
Hell." 

Sir David Lyndsay relates, in the prefatory 
epistle to his Dream, how he amused King James V 
when his attendant in youth, sometimes singing 
and dancing, sometimes " playing farces on the 
floor," 



THE DWARF'S PART 43 

And sumetyme lyke ane feind, transfigurate, 
And sumetyme lyke the greislie gaist of Gye; * 
In divers formis oft-tymes disfigurate, 
And sumtyme dissagysit full plesandlye. 

He might almost have been impersonating the vari- 
ations of Dunbar's Dwarf. 

In mediaeval Scotland, it is well to remember, 
fairies and fiends were not far asunder, and it was 
no more remarkable for the long-lived, shape- 
shifting Luridan, alias Brownie, to have been called 
Belial than for the long-lived, shape-shifting Dwarf, 
alias Blind Harry, giant Turk, and Ghost of Guy, 
to have had a grandsire Gog Magog. In a burlesque 
Scottish " tragedy," Sir John RowlVs Cursing,^ 
written about the date of the Interlude, the author 
calls upon Belial and all sorts of devils to revenge 
the stealing of his geese: 

Gog and Magog, and grym Garog, 

The devil of hell, the theif Harog, . . . 

And Brawny als, that can play kow 

Behind the claith, with many mow (more) . . . 

And vthiris devillis thair salbe sene, 

Als thik as mot in sonis heme." 

After reading this poem, one feels rather like Fer- 
dinand, who, when plagued by Ariel, cried: 

Hell is empty, 
And all the devils are here. 



44 THE DWARF'S PART 

" When the thousand years are expired," wrote 
St. John the EvangeHst, " Satan shall be loosed 
out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the 
nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, 
Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: 
the number of whom is as the sand of the sea." * 
Gog and Magog were made into one giant figure 
and his fame spread abroad in Britain by Geoffrey 
of Monmouth,t '* in stature twelve cubits, and of 
such prodigious strength that at one shake he 
pulled up an oak as if it had been a hazel wand " 
— another Hercules. The Interlude, it is clear, was 
not only written in a mood of devilry, but notably 
concerned devils, or faery folk who were regarded 
as such. 

The numerous otherworld beings who appear in 
Gaelic story " in divers forms oft times disfigurate" 
were actually represented by the pious, if not by 
all serious folk, as " sons of Belial." | For ages the 
clergy combated popular convictions about the 
" people of the hills," the Tuatha de Danann,§ not 
going so far as to deny their existence, but anx- 
iously discountenancing them as evil spirits with 
whom it was dangerous to have dealings. But even 
they, with all their power, did not prevent either 
the stories of the Celtic gods and heroes abun- 
dantly, or the belief in them measurably, from being 
perpetuated in Scotland even to our own day. 



THE DWARF'S PART 45 

Dunbar, as we have seen, identified his Dwarf 
with a heathen underworld sprite, a spirit of the 
Christian hereafter, and a bhnd old man from 
faery. He made him act like a bold busteous bel- 
lamy, a noisy Pan or satyr. He ascribed to him 
power to prophesy and provide good gifts for men. 
The well-informed seventeenth-century Scot, the 
Rev. Mr. Kirk, in his Secret Commonwealth of 
Elves, Fauns and Fairies* a book that has been 
called " a kind of metaphysic of the fairy world," 
shrewdly remarked: "How much is written of 
pigmies, fairies, nymphs, sirens, apparitions, which 
though not the tenth part true, yet could not 
spring of nothing." f Certainly not, we agree, but 
of what ? Under pain of retarding a little the dis- 
cussion of the main points here at issue, let us 
stop a moment to inquire the spring of the various 
superstitions to which the consideration of Dun- 
bar's poem has naturally led us. And as an aid we 
may do well to note the following striking words of 
Thomas Nash, written soon after Shakespeare im- 
mortalized fairy lore in his Midsummer-Nighfs 
Dream: " The Robin-good-fellows, elfs, fairies, 
hobgoblins of our latter age, which idolatrous 
former days and the fantastical world of Greece 
ycleped Fauns, Satyrs, Dryads, Hamadryads, did 
most of their pranks in the night." This passage, 
as Nutt pointed out, J suggests a parallel " far 



46 THE DWARF'S PART 

closer and weightier in import than its author 
imagined." " The parallel is a valid and illumi- 
nating one, for the fauns and satyrs are of the train 
of Dionysus, and Dionysus in his oldest aspect is a 
divinity of growth, vegetable and animal, wor- 
shipped, placated, and strengthened for his task, 
upon the due performance of which depends the 
material welfare of mankind, by ritual sacrifice. 
Dionysus was thus at first a god of much the same 
nature, and standing on the same plane of develop- 
ment as, by assumption, the Irish Tuatha de Da- 
nann. But in his case the accounts are at once 
fairly early and extensive, in theirs late and 
scanty." 

Speaking of the Robin Goodfellow of 1628, Nutt 
adds: " I believe that in this doggrel chapbook we 
have the worn-down form of the same incident 
found in the legends of Arthur and Merlin, of 
Cuchulinn and Mongan, told also in Greek my- 
thology of no less a person than Dionysus, son of 
Zeus and Semele, the mischievous youth who, as 
we learn from the Homeric Hymn, amused himself 
in frightening Greek sailors by transformation 
tricks of much the same nature as those dear to 
Puck." 

To go farther with such speculation here would 
be out of place. SuflSce it to state that the more one 
studies the evidence, the more one sees that the 



THE DWARF'S PART 47 

'* idolatrous former days " of Britain had close 
likeness with " the fantastical world of Greece." 
The Interlude was plainly written for some gay 
festival. The Dwarf says he has come to the as- 
sembly at Edinburgh with three companions, Wel- 
fare, Wantonness and Play, " to put care clean to 
flight." His last request is for a buxom wife and 
a bountiful drink. He declares himself the symbol 
of Wealth, and ends the recital of his own varying 
manifestations by predicting great prosperity to 
his hearers, plenteous comfort, which it was his 
mission to bring. 

My name is Welth. Thairfoir be blyth 
I am cum confort 30W to kyth. 
Suppois wrechis will wail and wryth. 

All darth I sail gar [make] die. 

The Dwarf was a playful and wanton but benefi- 
cent spirit, who was able to bring good gifts be- 
cause he came from the chief seat of wealth, as 
well as mirth, the land of faery. As we read in the 
Voyage of Bran: * 

Wealth, treasm-es of every hue, 

Are in Ciuin [Gentle Land], a beauty of freshness, 

Listening to sweet music. 

Drinking the best of wine. 

The Dwarf represents, in a form parallel to 
Brownie-Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, the baser 



48 THE DWARF'S PART 

agricultural daimones of ancient Greece, Pans and 
Fauns and Satyrs, who followed in the train of 
Bacchus-Dionysus. Dunbar knew Bacchus as " the 
gladder of the table," while the author of the 
Wallace, crediting the English with an orgy after 
the hanging at Ayr, remarked: " Thar chyftayne 
was gret Bachus off wyn." Dunbar also described 
Pluto as " an elrich incubus in cloak of green,"* 
even as Chaucer before had called him " king of 
faerie " f and pictured him with his queen Pro- 
serpina disporting and making melody about a 
well. Walter Map J explicitly mentioned Pan in 
picturing his dwarf-king Herla, who, like Blind 
Harry, was " long in faery ferlys to find." Major § 
connected brownies (brobne) with fauns, and 
gravely expressed doubt whether they really could 
prophesy, as men in his time asserted. In the Mid- 
dle Ages, indeed, no argument was needed to con- 
nect the classical and Celtic underworlds. The like- 
ness of pagan British and Greek traditions was then 
recognized by scholars, to the delight of some and 
the discomfiture of others. 

There is reason, not only to connect Dunbar's 
Dwarf with Dionysus, but also to regard the Inter- 
lude as a sort of satyr-play. Hesiod tells of 

the worthless idle race of Satyrs 
And the gods, Kouretes, lovers of sport and dancing. 



THE DWARF'S PART 49 

The Kouretes, says Strabo, " inspire terror by 
armed dances accompanied by noise and hub- 
bub." * It was the ancient Greek custom to cele- 
brate the feast of Dionysus, whose cult was sub- 
stantially that of the Kouretes, with orgiastic 
rites and Bacchanalian revels, and later were 
enacted mystery -plays in his honor. " The Satyr- 
play," says Gilbert Murray,t " coming at the end 
of the tetralogy, represented the joyous arrival of 
the Reliving Dionysus and his rout of attendant 
daimones at the end of the Sacer Ludus." 

Now the Druids held festivals to the gods which 
were maintained in mediaeval Scotland at such 
times as Beltane and Hallowe'en, and at the latter, 
in special thanksgiving for the harvest, it was still 
supposed in Dunbar's day that fairies were wont 
to hold a great revel-rout. | 

Montgomery,! in his Fly ting with Pol wart, thus 
describes how the " good neighbours," or fairy 
Good People, were then thought to act: 

In the hinder end of haruest, on Alhallow euen. 
When our good nighbours doe ryd, gif I read right. 
Some buckled on a bun wand, and some on a been, 
Ay trottand in trupes from the twilight; 
Some sadleand a shoe aip all graithed into green. 
Some hobland on ane hempstalke, hoveand to the hight. 
The King of Pharie, and his court, with the Elfe Queen, 
With many elrich Incubus, was rydand that night. 



50 THE DWARF'S PART 

Polwart, addressing his opponent in the same 
colloquy, referring to Argyll, declares: 

Into the land where thou was borne, 
I read of nought hot it was skant; 
Of cattell, cleithing, and of corne, 
Where wealth and welfaire baith doth want. 

In greater or less degree, all Scotland was in want 
of these same things, and nothing could have been 
more appropriate than for Dunbar, if called upon 
to contribute to a festival entertainment at such a 
time as Hallowe'en, or more likely May-day,* to 
picture a supernatural Dwarf, a fertility-daemon, 
bringing upon the stage Wealth and Welfare, as 
well as Wantonness and Play. 

Even as A Midsummer-Nighfs Dream is our pre- 
eminent fairy fantasy, so Euripides' Bacchanals is 
the preeminent Greek presentation of a daemonic 
revel; and it is quite as illuminating to compare 
certain features of the latter as of the former with 
The Dwarfs Part of the Play. It has often been 
pointed out how marvellously Shakespeare has 
caught the spirit of ancient fairy lore in his su- 
premely original and sparkling drama, planned to 
" awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth," and 
I have already indicated basic resemblances be- 
tween his fairy figures and Dunbar's Dwarf. But 
Euripides brings us nearer to the more divine per- 
sonages Dionysus and Kouros, with whom Pan and 



THE DWARF'S PART 51 

Satyr are connected, even as Brownie and Luridan 
with the more pretentious, if not more primeval, 
Amergin and Taliessin. 

The Bacchanals opens, like most of Euripides' 
plays,* with a formal speech addressed to the audi- 
ence by a solitary supernatural figure, in this case 
Dionysus, alias Bacchus, lacchus, Bromius, the 
Clamor-king, which is parallel in idea to the pro- 
nouncements of the Celtic shape-shifting poets 
just mentioned, and in expression as well, to the 
opening of the Interlude. 

The wine-god abruptly appears alone on the 
stage and thus speaks : f 

I to this land of Thebes have come, Zeus' Son 

Dionysus, born erstwhile of Cadmus' child 

Semele, brought by levin-brand to travail. 

My shape from God to mortal semblance changed . . . 

Leaving the gold-abounding Lydian meads 

And Phrygian, o'er the Persian's sun-smit tracts. 

By Bactrian strongholds. Media's storm-swept land. 

Still pressing on, by Araby the Blest, 

And through all Asia, by the briny sea 

Lying with stately-towered cities thronged. 

Peopled with Hellenes blent with aliens, 

To this of Hellene cities first I come. 

Having established in far lands my dances 

And rites to be God manifest to men. 

To another land 

Then, after triumph here, will I depart, 
And manifest myself. 



52 THE DWARF'S PART 

Here we have a mysterious personage, claiming 
to be the son of great Zeus, who has travelled all 
over the Occident and Ind, and manifested him- 
self in different shapes, now come to Thebes, with 
a revel-band, " fraught with many marvels," to 
show himself in his power and to institute his rites. 
Dionysus belongs to the Kouretes, givers of wealth, 
and the chorus in the Bacchanals sings : 

Our God, the begotten of Zeus, hath pleasure 
In the glee of the feast where his chalices shine; 

And Peace doth he love, who is giver of treasure, 
Who of Youth is the nursing-mother divine. 

On the high, on the low, doth his bounty bestow 

The joyance that maketh an end of woe, 
The joyance of wine. 

" The madding Satyr-band " he leads are all intent 
on wantonness and play. For them no care; for 
Thebes no dearth. Dionysus " gave men the grief - 
assuaging wine." " Dionysus upon women will not 
thrust chastity." Surely the mood of the Interlude 
is the mood of the Bacchanals. 

We have dwelt long — I hope not too long — 
upon Dunbar's Dwarf and the statements put into 
his mouth. To illuminate one of his manifestations, 
it has been necessary to try to illuminate all; for 
all together go to show the confused background of 
belief that explains the mythical figure of Blind 
Harry, long a denizen of faery, with whom we are 



THE DWARF'S PART 53 

primarily concerned. But before we leave the Bac- 
chanals, we may well consider the character of a 
Greek celebrity who appears in the play in com- 
pany with Dionysus, sense-bereft, but not, like 

Pentheus, stark-mad — 

The seer 
Tiresias, in dappled fawnskins clad! 
O sight for laughter. 

" This Tiresias," said Louis Dyer,* " is not the 
dread shade that defies in Homeric song the power 
of darkness and seems to live in death. Nor is he 
the Tiresias of Sophocles, that majestic incarna- 
tion of wisdom whose mighty wrath and burning 
scorn cowed even the spirit of Oedipus the Great. 
Tiresias in the Bacchanals is grotesque, if we forget 
that Dionysus has entered into him and possessed 
him, when he comes upon the stage in a Bacchic 
garb, ill-suited alike to his years and his priestly 
office. He is bent upon taking his part in Bacchic 
re veilings, and is in the act of seeking another — 
a companion old like himself, and like himself ill- 
suited for the dance. This companion appears; he 
is the royal Cadmus, and shows at the outset 
eagerness even greater than that of Tiresias for 
gambolling in the wilderness of Cithaeron, saying: 

' Wliere leads the dance, where must we take our turn 
And toss our gray-haired heads ? Interpret thou, 
Aged Tiresias; lead my old age. 



54 THE DWARF'S PART 

For thou art wise. The livelong day and night 
Untiring with my thyrsus I '11 smite earth. 
' Tis sweet for us when we our age forget.' 

" Tiresias ends by seeming the less grotesque of 
the two; it is he who turns apologist for Dionysus, 
and very skilfully his argument begins : 

' We reason not o'er nicely of the gods. 

They are the heirlooms by our fathers left, 

As old as time; no logic shall destroy them. 

Not though the keenest wit should prompt the thought! * " 

These last words of Euripides we should keep in 
mind throughout our investigation. That Dunbar 
read the Bacchanals, is very improbable. But the 
conviction will grow strong that Blind Harry and 
Blind Tiresias are products of the same primitive 
manner of thought. 

In any case, the Blind Harry of the Interlude 
was decidedly not the author of the Wallace. 



CHAPTER IV 

Faery Folk 

'T is Fancy's land to which thou set'st thy feet; 
Where still, 't is said, the fairy people meet, 
Beneath each birken shade, on mead or hill. 

While airy minstrels warble jocund notes. 

Collins 

WE get nearer to discovering the secret of the 
dwarf Blind Harry when we see how strik- 
ingly what he says of himself in the Interlude — 

I am the nakit Blynd Hary 
That lang has bene in the Fary, 
Farleis to fynd, — 

reveals his similarity to Thomas Rhymer, " True 
Thomas," the famous prophet of Erceldoun. He 
too was once widely reputed to have been in faery 
and found ferlys. 

According to a fifteenth-century English poem, 
which rightly charmed Sir Walter Scott, Thomas 
Rhymer caught sight of a ravishing fairy as he lay 
longing one merry May day on Huntly banks, and 
followed her over a high mountain to the Eildon 
Tree, where he swore to abide with her evermore, 
" in heaven or hell." Imposing serious conditions. 



56 FAERY FOLK 

she took him by a mysterious underground pas- 
sage through dark water for three days without 
food, to her marvellous land, where he witnessed 
one strange f erly after another. All manner of min- 
strelsy was there, and Thomas dwelt in that solace 
so enthralled that several years passed as three 
days. But then, for reasons into which we need not 
here enter, his " lovely lady " conducted him back 
to the land of mortals. When she was about to bid 
him farewell, and he pleaded with her not to leave 
him without some token of their intimacy, she 
vouchsafed to make certain prophecies, which 
were carefully recorded. But still Thomas pleaded 
to hear more, saying " Tell me yet of some ferly." 
Repeatedly she gratified his request, and thus con- 
veyed to him much knowledge of profit to him 
both as a minstrel and a seer. 

In a somewhat later poem. The Prophisies of 
Rymour, Beid, and Marlyng* the agent of the 
prophecies is " a little man " who was held by one 
who met him mysteriously by the wayside until 
he related " uncouth tidings " of the Scottish wars, 
and exhibited ferlys.f This poem is evidently that 
with which Sir David Lyndsay says he comforted 
King James V when he saw him " sorry ": 

The propheceis of Rymour, Beid, and Marlyng, 
And of mony uther plesand storye, 
Of the Reid Etin, and Gyir Carlyng. 



FAERY FOLK 57 

The words occur in the same passage in which 
Lyndsay refers to the " grisly ghost of Guy " and 
" fiends transfigurate." That Thomas Rhymer 
might be thought to have to do with a fiend would 
appear from the account given in the ballad of the 
transformation of his lovely lady into a naked 
blear-eyed hag: 

Thomas stood up in that stead 

And beheld the lady gay: 
Her hair it hung over her head, 

Her eyes seemed out, they were so gray. 

And all her clothing was away 

That he before saw in that stead; 
Her one shank black, the other gray 

And all her body like the lead. 

Thomas's experience was like that which Giral- 
dus Cambrensis * ascribes to a Welshman named 
Meilerius, who had for some time intercourse with 
what was evidently a fairy mistress. " Suddenly," 
Giraldus relates, without giving the cause, " in- 
stead of a beautiful girl, he found in his arms a 
hairy, rough, and hideous creature, the sight of 
which deprived him of his senses, and he became 
mad. After remaining many years in this condition 
he was restored to health in the church of St. 
David's, through the merits of its saints. But hav- 
ing always an extraordinary familiarity with un- 
clean spirits, by seeing them, knowing them, talk- 



58 FAERY FOLK 

ing with them, and calling each by his proper name, 
he was enabled, through their assistance, to fore- 
tell future events." 

Meilerius was plainly a person of the same sort 
as he who revealed the future to St. Waltheof, 
abbot of Melrose (1148-59), as is written in the 
early alliterative Prophecy of Waldhave* pre- 
served in the famous Whole Prophecy of Scotland, 
where he is pictured as a fearful hairy person 
dreeing his weird in the wilderness. He would not 
tell all that Waldhave desired to know, but left 
him with the words: 

Goe musing upon Merling more if thou wil, 
For I meane for no more, man, at this time. 

We certainly cannot help musing upon Merlin 
after reading of such a figure, especially upon Mer- 
lin Sylvester as he appears in the Vita Merlini, 
where he seems to have the attributes of the savage 
madman Lailoken, who prophesied to St. Kenti- 
gern.f 

It has been stated that the Thomas story was 
perhaps the " immediate prototype " of that of 
Tannhauser, and many have held that the simi- 
larity between Erceldoun and Horselberg is too 
great to be accidental. " Between the Tannhauser 
legend at one end of the scale, and at the other 
many a tale picked up in this century, in which the 



FAERY FOLK 59 

mortal visitor to Faery is the object of admiration 
and envy rather than of reprobation, every shade 
of man's feehng towards the invisible world may 
be noted." * 

Brave efforts have been made to identify Thomas 
Rhymer, who found f erlys in faery and thus became 
a wise prophet, with an historical person of the 
name,t and to give him a prominent place, along 
with " Henry the Minstrel," in the roll of actual 
Scottish poets; but such efforts have been ill- 
advised. Thomas's prophecies, as has long been 
known, are of various dates, and to call him the 
author of the thirteenth-century romance Sir Tris- 
trem is plainly absurd. That poem may have been 
attributed to him in the first place because the 
original French poem on which it is based was 
written by one Thomas, " Thomas of Brittany "; J 
but the ascription was no doubt encouraged in 
order to give more currency to the work. 

Scholars may yet try to identify Tam Lin, Young 
Tamlane, the famous ballad hero, with some his- 
torical Scot, Thomas Lynn, or Thomas Lane, Jr.; 
but so far that has not been done, and we need not 
labor the point that he is a personage of fiction like 
Thomas Rhymer. He too, it will be remembered, 
was taken to faery, but escaped by the help of his 
mortal true-love. One feature of his story is of 
particular interest to us in connection with Blind 



60 FAERY FOLK 

Harry. When his otherworld mistress recognizes 
that Tarn Lin is lost to her,* she declares that if 
she had not been taken unawares she would have 
made him blind. 

" But had I kend, Tarn Lin," she says, 
" What now this night I see, 
I wad hae taen out thy twa grey een. 
And put in twa een o tree [wood]." f 

Blindness, as an infliction on one forced to leave 
faery against the will of its most mighty ruler, ap- 
pears similarly in a story of Celtic type incorpo- 
rated in the long Saga of Olaf Tryggvason.X Here 
Helgi Thorisson is released from life with Ingeborg 
of the Glittering Plains by the prayers of King 
Olaf; and this interesting reason for his blinding is 
given, that his jealous fairy-mistress did not wish 
Norway's daughters to enjoy his love. 

Kirk, who was particularly well acquainted with 
the ways of fairies, § dwells upon blindness as a 
punishment inflicted by them on visitors to ensure 
secrecy regarding their mode of life. " If any super- 
terraneans," he writes, " be so subtile as to practise 
sleights for procuring a privacy to any of their 
mysteries, (such as making use of their ointments, 
which as Gyges's ring makes them invisible, or 
nimble, or casts them in a trance, or alters their 
shape, or makes things appear at a vast distance, 
etc.) they smite them without pain, as with a puff 



FAERY FOLK 61 

of wind, and bereave them of both the natural and 
acquired sights in the twinkling of an eye." 

" There be many places," said Kirk,* " called 
fairy-hills, which the mountain people think im- 
pious and dangerous to peel or discover, by taking 
earth or wood from them; superstitiously believing 
the souls of their predecessors to dwell there. And 
for that end (say they) a mote or mount was dedi- 
cate beside every churchyard, to receive the souls 
tUl their adjacent bodies arise, and so become as a 
fairy -hill; they using bodies of air when called 
abroad. They also aflBrm those creatures that move 
invisibly in a house and cast huge great stones 
but do not much hurt, because counterwrought 
by some more courteous and charitable spirits that 
are everywhere ready to defend men (Dan. 10:13), 
to be souls that have not attained their rest." 

Into a fairy-hill {sidh, shian) Thomas Rhymer 
is said finally to have gone, as will be seen from the 
following traditional story of the Highlands. t 
When two fiddlers one day came to Inverness 
" nearly three hundred years ago," they were 
visited by a venerable-looking, grey-haired old 
man who offered them large inducements to go 
with him to his dwelling, outside the town and 
play there for a dance. "When morning came they 
took their leave highly gratified with the liberal 
treatment they had received. It surprised them 



62 FAERY FOLK 

greatly to find that it was out of a hill and not a 
house that they issued, and when they came to the 
town, they could not recognize any place or person, 
everything seemed so altered. While they and the 
townspeople were in mutual amazement, there 
came up a very old man, who on hearing their 
story, said : ' You are then the two men who lodged 
with my great-grandfather, and whom Thomas 
Rhimer, it was supposed, decoyed to Tomna- 
furach. Your friends were greatly grieved on your 
account, but it was a hundred years ago, and your 
names are now no longer known.' It was the Sab- 
bath day and the bells were tolling; the fiddlers, 
deeply penetrated with awe at what had occurred, 
entered the church to join in the oflices of religion. 
They sat in silent meditation while the bell con- 
tinued ringing, but the moment that the minister 
commenced the service they crumbled away into 
dust." This tale will be found to have great like- 
ness to many others written down long centuries 
before. 

We may now consider the connection of Blind 
Harry, the denizen of faery, with that illustrious 
personage, who, as Campbell pointed out,* "is in 
Gaelic tradition and old Gaelic lore the counter- 
part of Thomas the Rhymour," the mythical bard 
" to whom nearly all the old poetry in the High- 
lands is now attributed " — Blind Ossian. 



FAERY FOLK 63 

Curiously enough, we have all hitherto over- 
looked the fact that Dunbar himself definitely 
connects Blind Harry with Ossian. He represents 
his faery dwarf as descended from Finn mac Coul, 
who was Ossian's father; and Harry's own father 
he makes " mickle " Gow mac Morn, one of the 
most famous of Fenian heroes. In the fifteenth cen- 
tury Finn and Gow were familiar figures, even in 
the Lowlands, and various early Scottish poets al- 
luded to them with justifiable confidence that the 
force of their allusions would be felt. Barbour, who 
mentions a large body of Highlanders as combat- 
ants at Bannockburn, records that the Lord of 
Lome incited his men to pursue Bruce by the " en- 
sampill " of Golmakmorn in conflict with Finn.* 
Gavin Douglas, a contemporary of Dunbar, writes 
in his Palace of Honor,] inscribed to James IV, 
about 

Greit Gowmakmorne and Fyn Makcoul, and how 
Thay suld be goddis in Ireland as they say. 

Sir David Lyndsay a little later introduces the 
same worthies at the court of James V. In his 
Satire of the Three Estates (1538), he pictures a 
pardoner as exhibiting 

Ane relict lang and braid 
Of Fine Macoull the richt chaft blaid, 
With teith and al togidder. 



64 FAERY FOLK 

And in another place he represents a man as swear- 
ing by " grit Gow Makmorne." * Furthermore, 
genuine Gaelic poems about these and other heroes 
of the Finn-Ossian cycle were being collected in 
Scotland by men of station and learning at the 
beginning of the sixteenth century, as is shown by 
the precious collection of Scottish Gaelic verse 
made by the Dean of Lismore. 

Now, one of the best known traditions of the 
great Ossian concerns his residence in Tir na nOg, 
the Land of Youth, and his return to the land of 
mortals. The theme is finely treated in a Gaelic 
poem by Michael Comyn which, though written 
in 1748, must, Celtic scholars agree,t in matter at 
least be very old. This Lay of Oisin, " as he related 
it to Saint Patrick," is in the characteristic form 
of a dialogue, and begins with these words of the 
Saint: 

O! Noble Oisin, O! son of the king! 
Of greatest actions, valour, and conflicts, 
Relate to us now without despondency. 
How thou livedst after the Fians. 

Ossian tells how he went to faery, and how, by 
standing on a particular stone, he was filled with 
homesickness; then how the faery queen, " golden- 
haired Niamh," thrice warned him, when he got 
leave from her to go back to see Fionn and his 
great host, on no account to dismount from his 



FAERY FOLK 65 

white steed, else he should never return to the Land 
of Youth, but be an old man, withered and blind. 
Ossian departed,* but found no tidings of Fionn in 
Erin. As Niamh had predicted, conditions were 
not as they had been. After a while, however, a 
group of men approached, and their leader im- 
plored him to remove a large flag of marble under 
which a host of their fellows lay oppressed in dire 
extremity. The bard speaks : 

I lay upon my right breast, 

And I took the flag in my hand; 

With the strength and activity of my limbs 

I sent it seven perches from its place! 

With the force of the very large flag, 

The golden girth broke on the white steed; 

I came down full suddenly, 

On the soles of my two feet on the lea. 

No sooner did I come down. 

Than the white steed took fright; 

He went then on his way. 

And I, in sorrow, both weak and feeble. 

I lost the sight of my eyes, 

My form, my countenance, and my vigour; 
I was an old man, poor and blind. 
Without strength, understanding, or esteem. 

Patrick! there is to thee my story, 

As it occurred to myself without a lie. 
My going and my adventures in certain. 
And my returning from the " Land of Youth." 



66 FAERY FOLK 

The injunction put upon Ossian not to dismount 
from his steed in the land of mortals is duplicated 
in the ancient tale of Loegaire mac Crimthain, who, 
after a year's residence in the faery realm of Mag 
Mell, the Plains of Pleasure, was filled with a desire 
to seek tidings in his old home of Connaught, but 
who, mindful of a warning by the ruler of the sidh, 
resisted the urging of his kinsmen to alight on 
earth, declared that he came merely to bid them 
farewell, and returned unscathed to the other- 
world, whence he has not since issued.* 

On the other hand, an object lesson in the result 
of disobedience to faery command was afforded 
Bran son of Febal, in the oldest extant tale of the 
sort (written down perhaps as early as the seventh 
century),! though the hero himself escaped. Bran, 
we read, was led mysteriously on a voyage, with 
certain comrades, to the Isle of Joy and the Land 
of Women, but even among the delights of Elysium 
homesickness seized one of the company, Nechtan 
son of Colbran. " His kindred kept praying Bran 
that he should go to Ireland with him. The woman 
said to them their going would make them rue. 
However, they went, and the woman said that 
none of them should touch the land. Then they 
went until they arrived at a gathering at Srub 
Brain. The men asked of them who it was came 
over the sea. Said Bran: * I am Bran the son of 



FAERY FOLK 67 

Febal,* saith he. However, the other saith: 'We 
do not know such a one, though the Voyage of 
Bran is in our ancient stories.' The man [Nechtan] 
leaps from them out of the coracle. As soon as he 
touched the earth of Ireland, forthwith he was a 
heap of ashes, as though he had been in the earth 
for many hundred years." 

In the Breton lay of Guingamor* possibly by 
Marie de France, we have the same falling from 
the horse of the mortal returned from faery and 
his accompanying decrepitude, when he has broken 
the command of his otherworld mistress; but here 
the command is not that he refrain from alighting, 
but that he refrain from eating food in his native 
land.f Guingamor, in pursuit of a mysterious 
white stag, is led to a faery castle where were 

Sons de herpes et de vieles 
Chanz de vallez et de puceles. 

With the mistress of the place he dwells in delight 
three hundred years, though these seem to him 
but three days. When finally he returns home to 
tell his kinsmen of his adventure, he learns that 
they are all dead, but that the story of his strange 
departure is still held in memory by their descend- 
ants. To a charcoal-burner he recounts his other- 
world experience, and then prepares to return. 
Growing very hungry, however, he eats some 



68 FAERY FOLK 

apples from a tree by the roadside, whereupon he 
immediately becomes old and feeble.* 

A Celtic tale, similar in many respects to that of 
Bran, is told by Walter Map (tl209) in his De 
Nugis Curialium,^ of an ancient British king, by 
name Herla, who is conducted by a dwarf through 
a stone J to a mysterious, brilliant underworld, 
whence he is permitted to return with his men after 
what seems to them only three days, but with the 
strict injunction that none shall dismount from 
horseback until a little dog the dwarf gives them 
shall leap down from the arms of his holder. Herla 
rides but a short while before he sees an old shep- 
herd of whom he asks news of the queen. He is 
informed that stories of Herla's disappearance re- 
main in the tales of the Britons, but that Saxons 
have ruled in the land for two hundred years. 
Though nearly overcome by amazement. King 
Herla keeps to his horse. Some of his followers, 
however, alight, and when they touch the earth 
they crumble to dust — a fate that reminds us of 
what happened to the Two Fiddlers who lived for 
a hundred years with Thomas Rhymer. 

According to Map's story, Herla and his band 
ride on and on for ages, but at last disappear in 
the River Wye, in the year that Henry II was 
crowned. Whether or no it was Map who first con- 
nected this tale with the famous " Mesnie Helle- 



FAERY FOLK 69 

kin," we cannot say; * but this we know, that Hel- 
lekin, who afterwards became the stage-figure Har- 
lequin, was represented in the Middle Ages as a 
follower of Morgain la Fee,t and the idea of a 
faery cavalcade was then widespread. Even Arthur 
was made the leader of the Wild Chase. 

In the Scottish romance of ^ger and Grime, % 
which was written about the same time as the 
Wallace, the " forbidden country " to which the 
heroes go, like Chretien's Yvain, is evidently faery. 
There the lady mistress of the place § heals Eger's 
grievous wounds by magic ministrations and com- 
forts him by marvellous music. When, despite her 
urging to the contrary, she finds him determined 
to leave her, she warns him that if he does so his 
wounds will break out afresh, and this proves to 
be the case. When Eger approaches his old home, 
he feels them so sorely that he falls from his horse, 
which immediately disappears, and he is aban- 
doned with desperately sad longings for the " far 
country," the land of all solace. However disfig- 
ured, we have here at bottom the same appealing 
story of a mortal's visit to faery,|| where the art of 
healing flourishes supreme. The name of the chief 
hero may be identical with that of Oger le Danois, 
whose long life of happy youth with Morgain la 
Fee was to end so disastrously for him when from 
his head was taken the crown which Morgain had 



70 FAERY FOLK 

placed there.* It was Morgain, we recall, who took 
Arthur to Avalon, land of immortals, whence 
some day, according to the " Briton hope," he is 
expected to return, " rex quondam rexque futu- 
rus." t As Lydgate wrote: 

He as a king is crowned in fairye. 

With sceptre and sworde, and with his regalye 

Shall resorte, as lorde and souerayne 

Out of fairy, and reigne in Britayne, 

And repayre agayne the Rounde Table. J 

Gawain too went to faery, but has not yet returned 
to set men an example of his courtesy, as Chaucer 
conceived might be. Both Arthur and Gawain are 
brought into connection with Blind Harry by 
Dunbar. 

" The religion of the British tribes," wrote 
Elton, § " has exercised an important influence 
upon literature. The mediaeval romances and the 
legends which stood for history are full of the ' fair 
humanities ' and figures of its bright mythology. 
The elemental powers of earth and fire, and the 
spirits which haunted the waves and streams, ap- 
pear again as kings in the Irish Annals, or as saints 
and hermits in Wales. The Knights of the Round 
Table, Sir Kay and Tristram and the bold Sir 
Bedivere, betray their divine origin by the attri- 
butes which they retained as heroes of romance. 
It was a goddess, ' Dea quaedam phantastica,^ who 



FAERY FOLK 71 

bore the wounded Arthur to the peaceful valley. 
* There was little sunlight on its woods and streams, 
and the nights were dark and gloomy for want of 
the moon and stars.' This is the country of Oberon 
and of Sir Huon of Bordeaux. It is the dreamy 
forest of Arden. In an older mythology, it was the 
realm of a King of Shadows, the country of Gwyn 
ap Nudd, who rode as Sir Guy on in the ^Faerie 
Queene ' — 

' And knighthood took of good Sir Huon's hand, 
When with King Oberon he came to Fairyland.' " 

Attention should also be called to a charming 
little Scottish ballad entitled The Wee Wee Man* 
which presents us with a similar personage bred 
in Blind Harry's own locality, unaffected by 
courtly array. The Wee Wee Man was so mysteri- 
ously strong that he could fling a big stone as far 
as eye could see, a stone, we read, so big that, even 
if one were a " Wallace wight," one could not have 
lifted it to one's knee. The Wee Wee Man's dwel- 
ling is said to have been the bonny otherworld, 
whither he apparently took his mortal lady-love on 
horseback to see the faery queen, with her gay 
attendants, in a castle of crystal and gold. 

And there were dancing on the floor. 

Fair ladies jimp and sma; 
But in the twinkling of an eye. 

They sainted clean awa. 



72 FAERY FOLK 

In an elaborate version of this theme, a poem in 
eight-Hne stanzas,* found in a manuscript of the 
fourteenth century, a poem closely related to the 
ballad yet not its source, the recounting of the 
" ferly " (so it is called) of the " little man " was 
planned, like that of Thomas Rhymer, to start a 
string of prophecies. f Such instances of the use of 
faery stories in Scotland as a prelude to prophecy 
should be kept in mind in our inquiry. Long estab- 
lished traditions, paralleled in Greek times, attest 
that inhabitants of the otherworld had, and visit- 
ors there might gain, the gift of prophecy, and such 
beings were naturally made the mouthpieces of 
words of wisdom whenever their utterance seemed 
desirable to literary men. 

If, as seems likely from the Celtic parallels. 
Blind Harry was old, withered and blind because 
he had disobeyed his otherworld mistress, and, 
having lived long in faery, was forced to resume 
the course of his natural years when re-entrance 
to that eternal realm was forbidden him, it was 
most natural for Dunbar to have the Dwarf of the 
Interlude announce identity with him, if only be- 
cause of his physical appearance.J But there was 
evidently more in the situation than that. Visitors 
to faery and inhabitants of faery were both faery 
folk, and as such were inevitably confused in the 
popular mind. While mortal visitors to faery might 



FAERY FOLK 73 

be left on earth in the condition of extreme age, 
the immortal inhabitants of faery were sometimes 
dwarfs by nature, and sometimes assumed the 
shape of dwarfs for purposes of their own. If 
mortals who for a time had put on immortality 
and become possessed of faery skill, sang and pro- 
phesied when they returned from their otherworld 
life, albeit perhaps afflicted with blindness and 
physically weak, immortals in pigmy size or of the 
pigmy realm sang and prophesied on earth as they 
desired. Merlin, we remember, who could change 
his semblance at will, and sometimes took the form 
of a dwarf, once visited Arthur's court as a blind 
minstrel, led by a little dog, and harped a Breton 
lay.* 

Innumerable, indeed, are the dwarf minstrels of 
Celtic fable, and acquaintance with some is neces- 
sary for the illumination of our theme. 

Perhaps the tiniest of them was Esirt, "chief 
poet, bard and rhymer " of the pigmy realm of 
the Lupracan. After offending his ruler King Jubh- 
dan by moderate praise, Esirt set out for Emania, 
where at the court of Fergus dwelt Aedh, Ulster's 
chief poet and man of science. Aedh could stand 
on full-sized men's hands, but Esirt had room 
enough on Aedh's palm. Fergus's men were dis- 
posed to be playful with Esirt, but the dwarf soon 
revealed such secret knowledge (of the sort Merlin 



74 FAERY FOLK 

exhibited before Vortigern) that the King ex- 
claimed: ** Esirt, thou art in truth no child, but 
an approved man of veracity." Thereupon Esirt 
recited a poem he had composed in praise of Jubh- 
dan and his land, and Fergus loaded him with 
gifts. Afterwards, Aedh accompanied his fellow- 
poet home, riding mysteriously on a hare over the 
seas. Jubhdan was put under bonds to come to 
Emania and when there showed himself also a su- 
perior poet and prophet. In a lay that Aedh indited 
about Jubhdan's faery palace these words occur: 
" Reciting of romances, of the Fian-lore, was there 
every day; singing of poems, instrumental music, 
the mellow blast of horns, concerted minstrelsy. 
A noble king he is : Jubhdan, son of Abhdaein, of 
the yellow horse; he is one whose form undergoes no 
change, and who needs not to strive after wisdom." * 
Much more prominent among the sweet singers 
of Gaelic lore was one often mentioned in Ossianic 
verse, as for example, by Ossian in his Dialogue 
with St. Patrick: f 

Little Cnu, Cnu of my heart, 

The small dwarf who belonged to Fionn, 
When he chaunted tunes and songs, 
He put us into deep slumbers. 

To Ossian the sound of Gnu's finger was dearer 
than *' all the Saint's clerics in church and coun- 
try." Gaeilte, one of Ossian's last comrades, having 



FAERY FOLK 75 

like him a supernatural span of years, was able to 
give St. Patrick an ample account of this same Cnu, 
surnamed Dereoil (Diminutive Nut), " the finest 
musician that was in either Ireland or Scotland," 
and from him we learn * that the cause of Cnu's 
leaving the faery realm, the land of the Tuatha de 
Danaan, was that " the other musicians were 
grown jealous of him." The first man that came 
his way after he emerged from the sidh, was Finn, 
who discovered the tiny fellow playing on a green 
(faery) mound, and welcomed him as a friend. It 
was " the third best windfall Finn ever had." The 
dwarf came to be " a spell in [Finn's] companion- 
ship." " The man's it was (and a stupendous gift) 
to gratify the whole world's throngs at once with 
minstrelsy "; but he did the Fianna, apparently, 
still greater service; " when evil awaited them, the 
dwarf would not conceal it from them." f 

Still another very famous minstrel of the Tuatha 
de Danaan, was Cascorach, son of Cainchinn, who 
came out of the sidh of the Dagda's son, Bodhb 
Derg, with the interesting purpose " to acquire 
knowledge, and information, and lore for recital, 
and the Fianna's mighty deeds of valour, from 
Caeilte son of Ronan." Caeilte, who was now 
preternaturally old, heard with emotion Casco- 
rach's request. " To his heed and mind Caeilte 
then recalled the losses of all those warriors and 



76 FAERY FOLK 

great numerous bands among whom he had been; 
and miserably, wearily, he wept so that breast and 
chest were wet with him." Cascorach was a min- 
strel of marvellous skill and played with " a cer- 
tain fairy cadence " so that even wounded men 
slept peacefully at the sound." Caeilte introduced 
him to St. Patrick, who asked him for a specimen 
of his musical art and craft. After hearing him 
play, the saint granted him the guerdon of Heaven 
and broke out into praise of minstrels and reciters 
of tales. " But for a twang of the fairy spell that 
infested it," he declared to his scribe Brogan, 
" nothing could more nearly than Cascorach's 
music resemble Heaven's harmony." Happily St. 
Patrick was represented as fond of Fian-lore, and 
the myths of ancient Erin.* 

Finally, we may mention the marvellous Glas- 
gerion of ballad fame,t who harped in the queen's 
chamber " till ladies waxed wood (mad)." Every 
stroke on his harp gladdened the heart of the king's 
daughter whose love he sought. He, of course, is 
" the Bret Glascurion," whom Chaucer speaks of 
in the House of Fame along with Arion and Chiron 
and mythical harpers of antiquity, and Gavin 
Douglas along with Orpheus in his Palace of Honor. 
The association of these four specially deserves our 
notice, for their likeness in fundamental nature is 
clear. 



FAERY FOLK 77 

To tJiem, mediaeval poets might have added 
Amphion, son of Zeus and Antiope, of whom it is 
said that when he played his lyre the stones not 
only moved of their own accord to the place where 
they were wanted, but fitted themselves together 
so as to form the wall. Different accounts represent 
him as receiving his lyre from Hermes, Apollo, or 
the Muses. 

But most instructive perhaps of such parallels 
between Greek and Celtic fable regarding mythical 
harpers is that concerning Orpheus, the " tuneful 
bard," the son of Apollo and the muse Calliope, 
who performed marvels of minstrelsy. It was not 
without reason that the story of Orpheus and 
Eurydice was made over into a Breton lay, and 
infused with the spirit of Celtic faery. In our time 
Fiona MacLeod has poetically emphasized the 
likeness of Orpheus's effort to conduct Eurydice 
from the nether world with the story of Ossian.* " I 
have wondered often," he says, " if the ancient 
Gaelic tale of Oisin and Niamh — the later-life 
tale of the Son of Fionn and his otherworld love, 
in the days of his broken years and gathered sor- 
rows — has not in it the heart of the old Greek 
story. . . . For Oisin, too, went to the other- 
world to gather love, and to bring back his youth; 
but even as Orpheus had to relinquish Eurydice 
and youth and love, because he looked to take 



78 FAERY FOLK 

away with him what Aidoneus had already gath- 
ered to be his own, so Oisin, the Orpheus of the 
Gael, had to come away from the place of defeated 
dreams, and see again the hardness and bitterness 
of the hitherworld, with age and death as the grey 
fruit on the tree of life. . . . Oisin did not dwell 
evermore in the pleasant land whither his youth 
had gone and he to seek it, but came back to find 
the world grown old, and all he loved below the 
turf, and the taunts of the monks of Patrick in his 
ears, and the bell of Christ ringing in the glens and 
upon the leas. Nor does any know of his death, 
though the Gaels of the North believe that he 
looked his last across the grey seas from Druma- 
doon in Arran, where that Avalon of the Gael 
lies between the waters of Argyll and the green 
Atlantic wave." 

How much it must have meant for Blind Harry 
to have been " long in faery "! 



CHAPTER V 

Imaginaey Bards 

My locks were not then so grey; 
Nor trembled my hands with age. 
My eyes were not closed in darkness; 
My feet failed not in the race! 

Who can relate the deaths of the people ? 

Who the deeds of mighty heroes ? " 

Macpherson 

THE Dwarf's Part of the Play introduced us to 
Amergin and Taliessin, two of the most fa- 
mous Celtic bards, both of whom were connected 
with invisible powers and gained their skill thereby. 
Merlin, the great prophet of Wales (begotten by an 
incubus and himself the consort of a fay) was simi- 
larly allied with the other world. These three, as 
well as Aneurin, Llewarch Hen and others of their 
sort less well known,* unprejudiced scholars have 
at last come to perceive, were mythical personages; 
and yet they were credited with the composition 
of extant poems written, as Celtic specialists af- 
firm, in far more recent epochs than those in which 
the authors were said, even by euhemerizing or 
otherwise ingenious annalists, to have flourished — 
the majority not before the twelfth century.j 

79 



80 IMAGINARY BARDS 

From primal days, indeed, it was a common 
thing for British poets to father their own produc- 
tions upon early celebrities, and even throughout 
the Middle Ages mythical persons like Thomas 
Rhymer, as well as real persons like Bede and 
Thomas a Becket, were represented as the spokes- 
men of prophecies concocted centuries after they 
were supposed to, or did actually live. Ancient 
worthies, moreover, were frequently called up 
from " the undiscovered country from whose 
bourn no traveller [ordinarily] returns " to con- 
vey news to mortals; and, curiously enough, St. 
Patrick and other saints were made to play a large 
part in this means of perpetuating pagan lore and 
giving it credence.* Hymns were attributed to Pat- 
rick, as also to Columba, and a vision to Adamnan, 
which they could not have composed. Patrick was 
said to have codified the Brehon laws, much as old 
proverbs were put into the mouth of King Alfred, 
another lawgiver. 

In an old Irish narrative, where " varying " like 
Blind Harry's is given as the explanation of a hero's 
ability to authenticate information and prophecy, 
occurs a good example of a shape-shifter of super- 
naturally prolonged life who became an informant 
regarding past days and a credited seer. Tuan 
Mac Cairill,t after one hundred years as a man, is 
said to have changed his shape many times during 



IMAGINARY BARDS 81 

the next three centuries and more. Finally he was 
caught as a salmon and eaten by Cairell's wife, was 
born of her, and grew up with a long memory and 
superhuman insight. When he was of great age, he 
was baptized by St. Patrick. At the request of the 
sixth-century Irish saint Finnen of Moville, who 
preached the gospel in Ulster, Tuan, then a hermit, 
told the Christians the story of his life and trans- 
formations (reciting poems of his own composition) 
and all the history of Ireland. " There they stay 
a week conversing together. Every history and 
every pedigree that is in Ireland, 't is from Tuan, 
son of Cairell, the origin of that history is. He had 
conversed with Patrick before them, and had told 
him; and he had conversed with Colum Cille, and 
had prophesied to him in the presence of the people 
of the land." 

The Leabhar Gabhala, or Book of Conquests,* 
which contaitis the Irish ethnologic legends, de- 
clares that these were preserved by an early set- 
tler Fintan, who had lived before the Flood and 
had been miraculously preserved in order that the 
memory of the events should not be lost. He was 
baptized by St. Patrick and gave him an account 
of everything he remembered himself. 

In the Irish tract called The Champion's Ec- 
stasy, '\ the faery prince Lug is said to have appeared 
to Conn of the Hundred Battles (put by the annal- 



82 IMAGINARY BARDS 

ists at A.D. 177), carried him off in a magic mist to 
a wonderful abode, and there informed him of the 
future history of Ireland, the length of his reign, 
and the names of his successors for many centuries 
afterwards. Concerning Conn's experience Nutt 
remarks:* "It is instructive to note how in the 
early tenth century the personages and scenery of 
the otherworld were thus used as convenient ma- 
chinery for the fabrication of a prophecy, which 
doubtless owed its origin to the anxiety of some 
Northern poet to bolster up the claim of the race 
of Niall to the head kingship of Ireland. Instructive 
also that, whilst the story-teller makes no attempt 
to radically modify the primitive pagan character 
of these beings, he is yet anxious to bring them 
within the Christian fold by representing them as 
sons of Adam, clear proof that the process of trans- 
forming the inmates of the ancient Irish Olympus 
into historic kings and warriors had already 
begun." 

Here we may also recall how the great hero 
Cuchulinn, son of Lug, prince of faery, " after be- 
ing nine fifty years in the grave," was awakened 
by St. Patrick, to help him to convert Laegaire mac 
Neill, King of Ireland, to the true faith. Laegaire 
(Leary) would not be persuaded until he heard Cu- 
chulinn tell of his great deeds, amongst others his 
expedition to Scath, * the shadowy world.' 



IMAGINARY BARDS 83 

Perhaps more interesting for our purpose is the 
tradition of the recovery of the Tdin bo Cudlgne, 
the most celebrated epic of ancient Ireland, in 
which Cuchulinn's deeds are narrated. * " Two dif- 
ferent versions of the legend, one pagan and one 
Christian, exist. According to the first account, 
which is preserved in the Book of Leinster, Senchan 
Torpeist, chief poet and file of Erin about the year 
598 A.D., called a meeting of the bards and story- 
tellers of Erin to ascertain whether any of them 
could recollect the whole of the Tdin ho Cuailgne. 
They confessed that they remembered only frag- 
ments, and he then sent away two of their body to 
the East to seek an old book called The Cuilmenn 
long since carried away out of Ireland, which was 
said to contain the whole story of the Tdin. Setting 
forth, the young bards arrive, on their journey, at 
the grave of Fergus mac Roich at Magh Aei in Ros- 
common, and, seating himself on the tomb, one of 
them addressed to the spirit of Fergus a lay of his 
own composing. Suddenly he found himself en- 
veloped in a heavy mist, and Fergus himself ap- 
peared to him in all his old dignity and splendor, 
and, during a space of three days, he related to him 
from beginning to end the Progress of the Tdin. 
. . . According to [the second, or Christianized] 
version, Fergus appears in response to the prayers 
of the chief saints of Ireland collected for this pur- 



84 IMAGINARY BARDS 

pose around his tomb. St. Cieran of Clonmacnoise, 
who was present at the recital, is said to have writ- 
ten down the tale from beginning to end on a fine 
vellum manufactured from the skin of his favorite 
dun cow, hence called the Leabhar na hUidhre, or 
Book of the Dun Cow. Having offered up thanks- 
giving, the saints retire, and Fergus returns to his 
tomb." * 

A similar contrast between a heathen and a 
Christian version of a legend of poetic inspiration 
is present, on the one hand, in the Old Norse story 
of the shepherd Halbjorn Hali, who waited at the 
grave of Thorleif until that skald rose and in- 
structed him how to compose a song in his mem- 
ory, whereafter Halbjorn sang many songs in 
praise of princes; and, on the other hand, in the 
Anglo-Saxon story of the herdsman Caedmon, who 
was instructed by an angel how to compose a song 
of Creation, whereafter he dictated various Biblical 
narratives in the monastery of Whitby, as Bede 
relates. Csedmon is still reputed the first of Anglo- 
Saxon poets, though he has now been shorn of all 
the various epics with which he was once credited. 

We can see better why Blind Harry was repre- 
sented as the author of a poem dealing with events 
that occurred some two hundred years before when 
we recognize that it was a persistent habit of Celtic 
story-tellers to state that mortal visitors to faery 



IMAGINARY BARDS 85 

recounted deeds of former days of which they had 
first-hand knowledge.* As early as in the Voyage 
of Bran we find the artistic motivation of the many 
tales of ancients by ancients. After Bran's com- 
panion Nechtan had suffered the penalty of de- 
crepitude for disobedience to faery command, Bran 
sang a quatrain rebuking his folly. " Thereupon," 
we read, " to the people of the gathering Bran told 
all his wanderings from the beginning until that 
time, and he wrote these quatrains [describing his 
voyage] in ogam, and then bade them farewell, and 
from that hour his wanderings are not known." 

Even as Bran is pictured as telling later kins- 
men of his voyage to the otherworld, confirming 
what was in their ancient stories, so the poet of the 
Lay of Ossin,\ for artistic ends, represents Ossian 
as recounting to St. Patrick the circumstances of 
his journey to Tir na nOg, after the hard battle of 
Gabhra, when many of the Fianna were slain. In 
particular, we read of the attitude of the men of 
Erin when he came back after his long absence. 

On my coining, then, into the country, 
I looked closely in every direction, 
I thought then in truth 
That the tidings of Fionn were not to be found. 

'T was not long for me nor tedious. 

Till I saw from the west approacliing me 
A great group of mounted men and women. 
And they came into my presence. . . . 



86 IMAGINARY BARDS 

I myself asked then of them, 

Did they hear if Fionn was alive, 

Or did any one else of the Fianna live. 

Or what disaster had swept them away ? 

" We have heard tell of Fionn, 

For strength, for activity, and for prowess, 
That there never was an equal for him 
In person, in character, and in mien. 

" There is many a book written down. 
By the melodious sweet sages of the Gaels, 
Which we, in truth, are unable to relate to thee. 
Of the deeds of Fionn and of the Fianna. 

" We heard that Fionn had 
A son of brightest beauty and form. 
That there came a young maiden for him 
And that he went with her to the ' Land of Youth.' " 

'* Ossian Dall, blind Ossian," we have it on good 
authority, was, a century ago in Scotland, " a per- 
son as well known as strong Sampson or wise Solo- 
mon. . . . Ossian, ' an deigh namfiann,^ is prover- 
bial to signify a man who has had the misfortune 
to survive his kindred." * This is the chief reason 
why he became the mouthpiece of so many Gaelic 
lays and tales of the Fians. Were not the deeds of 
old heroes indubitable when told by themselves 
or their contemporaries ? 

In Ireland, Ossian's companion Caeilte attained 
greater fame than he as a poet and narrator of past 
events. t Caeilte it is who communicates to St. 



IMAGINARY BARDS 87 

Patrick the great body of old lore in the Colloquy 
of the Elders* Thus that precious anthology be- 
gins : " When the battle of Comar, the battle of 
Gowra, and the battle of Ollarba had been fought, 
and after that the Fianna for the most part were 
extinguished, the residue of them in small bands 
and in companies had dispersed throughout all Ire- 
land, until at the point of time which concerns us 
there remained not any but two good warriors only 
of the last of the Fianna: Ossian, son of Finn, and 
Caeilte, son of Crunnchu, son of Ronan f (whose 
lusty vigor and power of spear throwing were now 
dwindled down) and so many fighting men as with 
themselves made twice nine." 

Ossian and Caeilte set out together in search of 
hospitality, but after three days separated; Ossian 
went to his mother Blai in the sidh of Ucht Cleitigh 
(for she was of the faery folk), while Caeilte with 
his band by chance met St. Patrick and his clerks. 
The saint asked a favor of Caeilte, to show him a 
certain well, and then questioned him particularly 
about the ancients. "Success and benediction! 
Caeilte," he finally exclaimed: " all this is to us a 
recreation of spirit and of mind, were it only not a 
destruction of devotion and a dereliction of 
prayer." But Patrick's two guardian angels ap- 
peared to him and set at rest his fear that it might 
not be proper for him to be listening to stories of 



88 IMAGINARY BARDS 

the Fianna. " With equal emphasis, and coneord- 
antly, the angels answered him : ' holy cleric, no 
more than a third part of their stories do those 
ancient warriors tell, by reason of forge tfulness and 
lack of memory; but by thee be it [such as it is] 
written on tabular staffs of poets, and in ollaves ' 
words ; for to the companies and nobles of the latter 
time to give ear to these stories will be for a pas- 
time." Whereupon the angels departed. St. Patrick 
thereafter sought sedulously to elicit all the lore 
that Caeilte had in memory. Here we have the 
framework for the great corpus of Fenian tales con- 
cerning the elders and, what was also important, 
full authority for their authenticity; Caeilte was 
one of the elders himself, supernaturally main- 
tained alive with but a few others of his clan. 

In the Book of the Dun Cow is recorded how 
Caeilte came from the dead to help King Mongan 
to establish the truth of his version of old events 
against that of the bard Forgoll,* who had threat- 
ened to satirize Mongan and his family with lam- 
poons and bespell his land.f Caeilte advances to 
the court through the air and presents convincing 
evidence of his own participation in the event 
under discussion, thus rescuing Mongan from his 
predicament. Mongan appears from this story to 
have been a reincarnation of Finn mac Cumhail. 
After a lapse of several centuries, Finn was born 



IMAGINARY BARDS 89 

again into the world, retaining the memory of his 
past existence. 

Fergus was formerly chief of those poets at 
Finn's court in whom was " knowledge and the 
gift of prophecy." In the remarkable story of The 
Little Brawl at Almhain* this " sapient, trenchant- 
worded poet, the richly rewarded good man of 
verse," plays a conspicuous part. " Fergus True- 
lips, Finn's poet and the Fianna's, rose and before 
Finn son of Cumall sang the songs and lays and 
sweet poems of his ancestors and forbears. With 
the rarest of all rich and costly things Finn and 
Ossian, Oscar and mac Lughach, rewarded the bard 
wondrously; whereat he went to Goll mac Morna 
and in front of him recited the bruidhne or ' Forts,' 
the toghla or ' Destructions,' the tdna or * Cattle- 
liftings,' the tochmarcha or ' Wooings,' of his elders 
and progenitors: by operation of which artistic 
efforts the sons of Morna grew jovial and of good 
cheer." It would not have been surprising if this 
had been the Fergus who was called up from the 
otherworld to recite the surpassing Tdin. 

Even the famous Finn, father of Ossian and 
Fergus, was represented as a poet, and various 
fragments of verse and prophecies, among the old- 
est productions in Irish, are attributed to him.f 
** He was a king," said Caeilte, " a seer, a poet; 
a lord with a manifold and great train; our magi- 



90 IMAGINARY BARDS 

cian, our knowledgeable one, our soothsayer." * 
Of the conditions of service in Finn's company, we 
are informed: " Not a man was taken until he were 
a prime poet versed in the twelve books of poesy, f 
a curious qualification," as Rhys remarked know- 
ingly, " for membership in a body which some 
speak of as the ' militia of ancient Erinn.' " 
" Two hundred years in flourishing condition and 
thirty more free of debility (a lengthy term) 
were Finn's existence; which brought him to the 
point at which he perished in taking ' the leap of 
his old age.' " J Finn, tradition affirms, rests in 
this or that hill in the Highlands, and is expected 
back. 

It will suffice here to add a few sentences of com- 
ment by Alfred Nutt: 

" No one at the present day contends that the 
poems ascribed to Finn, to Oisin, to Cailte, and 
to Fergus are the compositions of these personages, 
or are anything else than scraps of a saga, related 
by means of narratives put into the hero's mouth 
descriptive of adventures in which he had taken 
part." § 

" One can hardly fail to be struck by the kinship 
of tone between the Gaelic poems ascribed to Oisin, 
and the Welsh ones ascribed to Llywarch Hen. In 
both cases the reputation of poet is simply due 
to the semi-dramatic nature of the composition. 



IMAGINARY BARDS 91 

Both Oisin and Lly warch Hen were regarded as fit 
personages in whose mouths to place sentiments of 
a particular cast, and later ages finding this or that 
elegy or battle piece assigned to the Gaelic or 
Welsh prince naturally considered them as being 
the authors of the same. Oisin and Llywarch are 
both old and feeble, the last survivors of a mighty 
generation, savagely rebellious against the slings 
and arrows of outrageous age, bitterly mindful of 
the pride and lust of their youth." * 

Blind Harry found ferlys in faery and returned 
in utter nakedness, though not (presumably) in 
entire forgetfulness, and trailing clouds of glory, 
from the other world where was " long " his home. 
We shall soon have more to say about the tone of 
the work that passes under his name and shall find 
that it was natural for a Fenian type of hero. 

The Celtic works above mentioned remind one 
of what is perhaps the earliest Anglo-Saxon poem, 
Widsith, where a bard represents himself as a 
guest at the courts of various historical monarchs, 
some of whom lived centuries apart. He who " most 
of all men visited kindreds and nations " now in 
old age enumerates his wanderings, with the regu- 
lar tone of regret of the ancient worthy who has 
outlived his kinsmen. " Many men and rulers I 
have known; through many stranger-lands I have 
fared, throughout the spacious earth, parted from 



92 IMAGINARY BARDS 

my kinsmen." His name, " Far-Traveller," and 
what he is made to say, indicate that he is merely 
a poetic representative of the wandering bard — a 
figure of fiction, yet more artificially created than 
Odin, alias Vegtamr, or Way-wont, of Old Norse 
myth. Odin, says Snorri, was " far-travelled." He 
was famed for his knowledge of past events.* Wid- 
slth is only a sketch, but it might have been made 
into a full resume of Germanic epic history, and the 
would-be author's personality so particularized 
that he might reasonably have been regarded as 
an actual person. There was no good ground, of 
course, for the former belief of scholars that the 
real author was himself a far-traveller, and present 
discussion of the date of the poem on the basis 
of the references it contains seems curiously vain. 
We ought to remember that poets have indulged in 
such artistic fictions from the beginning of time, 
and for sufficient cause have opened the mouths 
of men of olden days to recite old tales which the 
poets had reshaped to gratify their audiences, ac- 
cording to the measure of their power. 

It is hardly necessary to do more than allude to 
imaginary bards in classical tradition, such as Or- 
pheus, of whom mention has already been made. 
As a result of his fabled descent into Hades, he had 
attributed to him, amongst other things, various 
descriptions of that region, which were spread 



IMAGINARY BARDS 93 

abroad by itinerant singers. Aristotle held that the 
poems known under Orpheus' name were fabricated 
partly by Cecrops and partly by Onomacritus. 
Who wrote them is unessential here. But we do 
need to bear in mind that Orpheus was simply a 
mythical figure like other Greek bards of repute, 
Musaeus, Olen, Pamphos, Philammon, Eumolpus 
and Linus, not to mention such personages as 
Hyacinthus, Narcissus, Glaucus, Adonis and Man- 
eros, who eventually came to be considered as the 
authors of the dirges in which their memory was 
celebrated. In the same mythical class are the seers 
Melampus, Mopsus, Calchas, Amphiaraus, Hel- 
enus and Cassandra, in whose names many won- 
derful words were once spoken. 

More important for us is the blind Demodocus, 
whom Homer represents as singing of men's glori- 
ous deeds in the hall of Alcinous, and to him makes 
wise Odysseus say: * "I praise you beyond all 
mortal men, whether your teacher was the Muse, 
the child of Zeus, or was Apollo. With perfect 
truth you sing the lot of the Achaeans, all that they 
did and bore, the whole Achaean struggle, as if 
yourself were there, or you had heard the tale from 
one who was." Here clearly we have a sufficient 
reason for putting ancient tales into the mouth of 
an ancient bard: he might reasonably be pictured 
as having been in the old struggles himself, or as 



94 IMAGINARY BARDS 

hearing the tale from one who was. He might even 
be represented as the son of a muse, as Thamyris 
was of Erato, Linus and Orpheus of Calliope, Hy- 
acinthus of Clio. Homer himself was said by some 
to be the son of a nymph; likewise Ossian was 
the son of a faery lady from the sidh. As is well 
known, a large number of cyclic poems and hymns 
(preludes), in addition to the Margites and the 
Battle of the Frogs and Mice, went under the name 
of Homer, which could not be by the author of the 
Iliad and Odyssey. 

Similar use was made of Demodocus' as of Hom- 
er's name. Later writers who look upon this mythi- 
cal minstrel as an historical person, describe him 
as a native of Corcyra, and as an aged and blind 
singer, who composed poems on the destruction of 
Troy and the marriage of Hephaestus and Aph- 
rodite. Plutarch refers to the first book of an epic 
poem by him on the exploits of Heracles. But critics 
do not now take these statements seriously; and 
whatever poems may have existed under his name, 
they are apt to denounce as " forgeries." 

Forgery, however, is scarcely the proper word to 
use in such cases, though it is constantly so em- 
ployed. No obloquy need rest upon an author who 
seeks anonymity by attributing his work to a 
mythical bard. 



IMAGINARY BARDS 95 

There were, of course, imaginary bards and 
bards who had imaginary experiences, just as some 
men, according to story, entered the otherworld in 
the body and some simply dreamt they had gone 
thither. 



CHAPTER VI 

The Mythical and the Actual Blind Harry 

Angels and ministers of grace defend us! 

Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd, 

Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, 

Be thy intents wicked or charitable, 

Thou com'st in such a questionable shape 

That I will speak to thee. Hamlet 

CAN we discover nothing more definite about 
the mythical BHnd Harry, whose name the 
author of the Wallace seems to have chosen as an 
alias ? If, as Dunbar asserts, he was descended 
from Finn mac Cumhaill, and all his congeners 
were Gaels, he cannot in the beginning have been 
called Harry. That must be an anglicized form of an 
original Gaelic name, or due to some confusion. An 
inquiry into this matter, though it may not yield 
certain results, is essential here, and will be seen to 
throw more light on conceptions of faery. 

Blind Harry's father, according to Dunbar, was 
" mickle Gow mac Morn." The poet's statement 
that the son was " long " in faery implies that he 
was no permanent resident of the otherworld, but 
a mortal (fabled or real) who had resided there for 
an extended period of time. His blindness was ap- 

9« 



THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 97 

parently not a self-imposed disguise, but an aflflic- 
tion he was obliged to endure. Thus, both his 
ancestry and his experience link him with Blind 
Ossian, also a son of Gow mac Morn.* 

Under these circumstances, it is not going too 
far to suggest that Harry may be merely a corrup- 
tion of Garry, for Celtic tradition has much to tell 
of a son of Gow mac Morn called Garaidh (Garry), 
which name in Scotland at the end of the fifteenth 
century, as we see from the Book of the Dean of 
Lismore,] was written phonetically in a form re- 
sembling Zarri, which the first editor regularly 
transcribed as Garry, and the latest Gairri. It may 
have been Garry with an aspirate, which is prac- 
tically Harry. Aedh was the name of Gow mac 
Morn before he lost an eye, and was therefore 
called Gow (Goll, blind). Aedh, which means Fire, 
and is preserved in proper names like MacKay and 
Mackie, was frequently anglicized as Hugh. 

Garadh mac Morn appears in Irish documents 
as a decrepit old man telling tales mournfully of 
the Fianna whom he has outlived: " And his con- 
dition this : that the major part of his life was past, 
and his kinsmen all were slain." He is represented 
as coeval with the fathers of a company of women 
whom he was left to serve and entertain while the 
men were away hunting. He could not accompany 
them, " because," as one of them says, " he is gone 



98 THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 

off his lustihood and his spear throwing and be- 
cause the condition in which he is, is that of old 
age." When the women call upon him to play chess 
he refuses, but instead " chants at them an old 
rhyme " of a chess-match of former days which be- 
got a quarrel causing great slaughter of the Fianna. 
The incident is recorded, and the lay is summar- 
ized, by Caeilte in the Colloquy of the Elders* to 
explain why a famous curative well at Cnoc na 
Righ (Hill of the Kings), created by St. Patrick by 
striking a rock-wall with his staff, was named 
Garadh's Well. This Garadh was possibly identical 
or confused with the Guaire Goll, Blind Guaire, 
one of Finn's bearers of the chessboard, who is the 
leading figure of the story which the old minstrel 
tells, perhaps about himself. In any case, Garadh 
of the clan of Morna, and a brother-champion of 
Ossian, is well attested as a reciter of tales during 
his unhappy days of prolonged life; and, as he re- 
marks significantly, " an ancient man without an 
ancient legend is amiss." St. Patrick blessed Caeilte 
for repeating his story because it was " grand lore 
and knowledge " — such as could evidently be 
obtained only from a man of an older age. 

Whether or no Garadh mac Morn is to be identi- 
fied with Guaire Goll,t Blind Guaire, it is worthy 
of attention that the latter appears as a reciter of 
old tales in another Erse narrative, preserved in 



THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 99 

the twelfth-century manuscript The Book of Lein- 
ster, which recounts Finn's fearful struggle with 
phantoms * who " for their sister " sought venge- 
ance on him in a lonely hunting-lodge in a glen — 
a tale showing such fundamental resemblance to 
the famous story of Wallace's visitation by the 
revengeful ghost of Fawdoun in Gask Hall,t one of 
the most picturesque sections in Blind Harry's 
poem, that we may surmise the author here fol- 
lowed a Highland narrative. Blind Guaire in this 
case, however, is only an alias for Ossian, as ap- 
pears from the lines: 

Not " Guaire the Blind " was I called 
On the day we went at the king's call, 
To the house of Fiachu who wrought valor 
To the fortress over Badammar. 

Which suggests the interesting question: Were 
Blind Harry and Blind Ossian regarded as mere 
variant names of the same mythical person ? They 
were at all events both represented alike as sons of 
Morn and denizens of faery, with supernaturally 
prolonged lives, while both Blind Guaire and Blind 
Ossian in extreme old age were tellers of former 
events. 

" By one name was I never called since I went 
among peoples," Blind Odin (alias Harr) declares 
in an Eddie poem,J and Snorri makes him enu- 
merate fifty names he had adopted at one time or 



100 THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 

another. " Then said Gangleri: 'Exceeding many 
names have ye given him; and, by my faith, it 
must be a goodly wit that knows all the lore and 
the examples of what chances have brought about 
each of these names.' Then Harr made answer: 
* It is truly a vast sum of knowledge to gather to- 
gether and set forth fittingly. . . . Some occasions 
for these names arose in his wanderings; and that 
matter is recorded in tales. Nor canst thou ever be 
called a wise man if thou shalt not be able to tell 
of these great events.' " * Alas that we are not wise 
enough to tell even a small part of the great careers 
of Blind Odin, Blind Ossian, and their kind, in 
their varying forms ! 

It is an interesting fact that in Scotland the 
game of blindman's buff was called " Blin(d) 
Har(r)y," and that the same game was also called 
" Bellie Blin(d)," f for these once popular figures 
of fiction might have been thought to be alike. 
Now Billie Blin was the name of a well-known 
sprite whom Professor Child has confidently identi- 
fied with Odin in one of his many manifestations. 
Odin, who often changed his shape, as well as his 
name, was wont to go about as a blind wayfarer, 
calling himself " Guest the Blind," " Blind the 
Bale-wise," or simply " Blind." Scottish ballads J 
show acquaintance with this mysterious figure, and 
there is definite parallelism between one episode in 



THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 101 

which he plays a part and certam episodes in Blind 
Harry's Wallace. To throw light on the character of 
Billie Blin as he appears in the ballad of Earl 
Brand, Professor Child thus summarized the situa- 
tion in the Eddie lay of Helgi Hundingslayer: 
" Hunding and Helgi's family were at feud. Helgi 
introduced himself into Hunding's court as a spy, 
and when he was retiring sent word to Hunding's 
son that he had been there disguised as a son of 
Hagal, Helgi's foster-father. Hunding sent men to 
take him, and Helgi, to escape them, was forced to 
assume woman's clothes and grind at the mill. 
While Hunding's men are making search, a mysteri- 
ous blind man, surnamed the bale-wise, or evil- 
witted (Blindr inn bolvisi), calls out. Sharp are the 
eyes of Hagal's maid; it is no churl's blood that 
stands at the mill; the stones are riving, the meal- 
trough is springing; a hard lot has befallen a war- 
king when a chieftain must grind strange barley; 
fitter for that hand is the sword-hilt than the mill- 
handle. Hagal pretends that the fierce-eyed maid 
is a virago whom Helgi had taken captive, and in 
the end Helgi escapes." Similarly, the author of the 
Wallace twice represents his hero as dressing up as 
a woman in order to escape from a dangerous 
plight. We have gone but a little way in the poem * 
when we read how Wallace, hard pressed by ene- 
mies, took shelter in a house near-by where a good- 



102 THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 

wife succored him, dressed him in clothing of her 
own, " gaiff him a rok,* syn set him doun to spyn." 
The Southrons sought him busily in the house. 

Bot he sat still, and span full conandly. 
As of his tym, for he nocht leryt lang. 

They left completely foiled. On another occasion,! 
Wallace is represented as escaping from his mis- 
tress's house clad in her clothes, his " burly 
brand " hidden underneath. This time, two of his 
enemies suspected him as he passed; he seemed to 
them " a stalwart quean." They followed, but 
when at a safe distance Wallace turned and slew 
them both. 

In the Eddie lay that tells how Helgi did domes- 
tic work in woman's clothes, the secret is revealed 
by Blind Balewise, Blind Odin in his vindictive 
mood. Odin had two sides to his nature, repre- 
sented by the appellatives given him,| Bil-eygr 
and Bol-eygr, the mild-eyed and the evil-eyed. 
Both " bil " and " bale " appear in the actions of 
Billie Blin, the blind sprite, gifted with " unco " 
insight and prescience, who gave shrewd counsel 
to men. 

In the ballad of King Arthur and King Corn- 
wall § the Billie Blin (Burlow Beanie) is a loathly 
fiend in the service of the otherworld King Corn- 
wall, who spies on the Arthurian pilgrims. He is 



THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 103 

shut up in a " wall of stone " (which indicates that 
he is a dwarf) and he reveals all the secrets of his 
master, the magician, to the latter's complete 
discomfiture. 

Billie Blin and Blind Balewise are kindred figures 
and gave their names to types of uncanny beings, 
mentioned by scholars together, who were apt to 
appear among men and reveal secrets. They went 
about quite naked, and were regarded as fiends.* 
Blind Harry, we recall, was naked, and Old Harry 
was a popular Scotch name for the devil. f 

We read of friendly household spirits, like ** the 
drudging goblin " in U Allegro, the lubbar-fiend 
who works more than ten laborers by day, and at 
night " basks at the fire his hairy % strength," and 
also of mischievous, roguish goblins, like the naked 
Robin Goodfellow, who delight in frightening 
and perplexing people by their cries. But all spirits 
of the air were held to be dangerous. 

Polwart, in his last fly ting exclaims: 

Leaue boggles, brownies, gyr-carlings and gaists: 
Dastard, thou daffes, that with such divilrie mels.§ 

Mediaeval Scots, however, were keen about " such 
divilrie," in fiction at least. Sir David Lyndsay, 
as we have seen, amused his King by " pleasant 
stories of the Red Etin and the Gyre Carling." 
The Red Etin was a mythical figure, a being of 



104 THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 

supernatural strength, who in Hind Etin * ap- 
pears as a pagan elf, making strange music; yet in 
some versions of that ballad his name is humanized 
into Young Akin, even Young Hastings! We have 
a Scottish poem of Dunbar's time concerning the 
Gyre Carling, a " wild, wilroun witch," the Hec- 
ate of Britain, which is written with robust humor 
in a vein very similar to that of the Interlude.! The 
coarse performances of the Carling show that she 
was akin to the Dwarf's mother, truly, as she is 
called, a " devilish dame." When the Wallace was 
written, it must have been terribly hard to resist 
the crafts and assaults of the devil, he appeared in 
so many forms. 

As a man of his time, the author naturally specu- 
lated about the spirit world. When he pictures his 
hero as terrified at seeing the Ghost of Fawdoun 
before the door, he makes the brave warrior cross 
himself for fear of evil. 

In till his hart he was gretlye agast. 

Rycht Weill he trowit that was no spreit of man; 

It was sum dewill, at sic malice began. 

The poet was no scoffer at ghosts. He exclaims in 
person: 

Traistis rycht weill all this was suth in deide, 
Supposs that it no poynt be of the creide. 
Power thai had witht Lucifer that fell, 
The tyme quhen he partyt fra hewyn to hell, 



THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 105 

Commonly in Shakespeare's time, men felt there 
were " wicked " ghosts who had powers to blast a 
mortal, tempting spirits who could assume differ- 
ent forms and draw one into madness. Horatio 
knew well of these. But he knew too of " honest " 
ghosts, who came to earth to benefit the land they 
left, and he addressed the spirit of Hamlet's 

father: 

If thou art privy to thy country's fate. 
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, 
O speak! 

The author of the Wallace believed that some- 
thing was rotten in the state of Scotland, and he 
not only brought Thomas Rhymer on the scene to 
predict Wallace's glorious career, but also con- 
jured up the ghost of St. Andrew, making him ap- 
pear to the hero in a dream at Monkton Kirk.* 
Having said his paternoster, ave, and creed, Wal- 
lace falls asleep suddenly, when an aged man ap- 
proaches, gives him a gleaming sword, and takes 
him to the top of a high mountain, where he leaves 
him alone. The hero sees a felon fire burning 
throughout the land. But soon a queen descends to 
him illumined with so great light that she puts the 
fire from his sight, gives him a wand of red and 
green, blesses his face and eyes with a sapphire, and 
then addresses him. She chooses him, she says, as 
her love; he is granted by God to help people suf^ 



106 THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 

fering wrong; let him take redress and he shall have 
lasting bliss. She gives him a book and ascends out 
of his sight. As Wallace reads this book, he comes 
back to consciousness, and seeks Master John to 
interpret the vision. Blair explains that it is St. 
Andrew who has given him the sword and shows 
him the symbolism of the other details. Whether 
the lady was Fortune or Our Ladjs he could not 
surely tell, but he deemed it probable she was Our 
Lady.* 

The distinction between pagan and Christian 
visitants was, indeed, hard to define, and no strict 
lines were drawn. The faery queen who appeared 
to Thomas Rhymer was confused with the Virgin, 
and the Virgin takes the place of some otherworld 
lady in a remarkable account of how Thomas a 
Becket got the gift of prophecy.f 

Just as Celtic thoughts of faery were always 
tinged by Christian ideas, so paganism strongly 
infected Christian views of the supernatural. The 
early Church did not refuse to believe in spirits 
that haunt the air, and influence men for good or 
ill. Ecclesiastics argued learnedly about demonia- 
cal possession. They used belief in the otherworld 
to instruct men in the proper tenets of the faith. 
Mortals were readily depicted by them as visiting 
purgatory, or hell, or paradise, to learn the truth 
of Biblical teaching. They brought back messages 



THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 107 

from the great beyond, and were urged as guides 
to their fellows by reason of their superhuman ex- 
perience. By the aid of Divine powers they became 
prophets of political events. 

Thus prototypes in classical and Biblical lore, 
known to scholars, as well as the common example 
of ecclesiastics who invented visions of the future, 
plainly encouraged a practice which often led to 
imposture. " It would seem," says Sir Walter 
Scott,* speaking of the legend of Thomas Rhymer, 
" that the example which it afforded of obtaining 
the gift of prescience, and other supernatural pow- 
ers, by means of the fairy people, became the com- 
mon apology of those who attempted to cure dis- 
eases, to tell fortunes, to revenge injuries, or to 
engage in traflSc with the invisible world, for the 
purpose of satisfying their own wishes, curiosity, 
or revenge, or those of others. Those who practised 
the petty arts of deception in such mystic cases, 
being naturally desirous to screen their own im- 
postures, were willing to be supposed to derive 
from the fairies, or from mortals transported to 
fairyland, the power necessary to effect the dis- 
plays of art which they pretended to exhibit." 

This is an illuminating statement of facts fun- 
damental to our inquiry. But let us carefully dis- 
tinguish the kind of imposture of which Sir Walter 
speaks from that which he himself employed in 



108 THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 

his Minstrelsy when he imaginatively represents 
Thomas Rhymer as singing during a feast at Ercil- 
doun of King Arthur and various knights of the 
Table Round. 

True Thomas rose, with harp in hand. 

When as the feast was done: 
(In minstrel strife, in Fairy Land, 

The elfin harp he won.) 

Hushed were the throng, both limb and tongue. 

And harpers for envy pale; 
And armed lords leaned on their swords 

And hearkened to the tale. 

Naturally Sir Walter, since he had edited the 
Middle-English romance of Sir Tristrem attributed 
to Thomas, made the old man from faery sing 
especially of Tristram and Ysolde. 

Their loves, their woes, the gifted bard 
In fairy tissue wove. 

This was, he conceives, the minstrel's last song on 
earth, for he must needs return to fairyland at the 
sight of a snow-white hart and hind. Never again 
was he seen " in haunts of living men," and never 
will reappear — until another Scott wishes a mouth- 
piece for a tale of olden time! 

Again, in Redgauntlet, Sir Walter puts an un- 
canny tale into the mouth of a strange blind min- 
strel called Wandering Willie, who reminds us of 
Billie Blin. " He commenced his tale accordingly, 



THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 109 

in a distinct narrative tone of voice, which he 
raised and depressed with considerable skill; at 
times sinking almost into a whisper, and turning 
his clear but sightless eyeballs upon my face, as if 
it had been possible for him to witness the impres- 
sion which his narrative made upon my features." 
Most noteworthy are the words that the author, 
who knew as much as any one of his time about 
demonology and witchcraft, especially as it was 
illustrated by Gaelic belief, makes this blind min- 
strel speak: " Honest folks like me! How do ye ken 
whether I am honest or what I am ? I may be the 
deevil himsell for what ye ken, for he has power to 
come disguised like an angel of light; and, besides, 
he is a prime fiddler." 

When Sir Walter in these latter days used 
Thomas Rhymer as the mouthpiece of Arthurian 
fable, and Blind Willie as the mouthpiece of a 
Border tale, he was acting in a very similar way to 
the author of the Wallace when he chose Blind 
Harry to voice his fictions about a former champion 
of Scottish rights. 

Whoever Blind Harry was among the ancients, 
he was reputed in the poet's time to have been long 
in faery, where he experienced marvels. Such a 
person, having penetrated mysteries hidden to 
common men, would naturally be regarded by 
them with awe, and listened to with unfeigned re- 



110 THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 

spect, heeded, like the Ghost of Guy or St. An- 
drew, as one who had risen from the dead, like 
True Thomas or Ossian, as one who had tasted of 
immortality, in possession therefore of super- 
natural insight and knowledge, believed amply 
when he spoke either of the past or the future. 

It appears, then, that the author of the Wallace 
had good grounds for choosing Blind Harry as his 
pseudonym. It was as apt as Theophilus Insula- 
nus, which was used by a Macleod who wrote a 
treatise on second sight (Theophilus being the 
mediaeval Faust), or Robin Goodfellow, who in 
1590 published the News out of Purgatory by his 
" old companion " Richard Tarlton. This latter 
book has sometimes been attributed to Thomas 
Nash, but whether or no he is the author, certainly 
Tarlton the actor (tl588) had as little to do with it 
as St. Patrick with the Purgatory that went under 
his name, or Tundalus with the Vision with which 
he was credited. But Robin Goodfellow was an 
elfin spirit and served very well as a pseudonym 
for one who wished to convey news out of 
purgatory. 

It is time now to consider an actual Blind Harry 
who has regularly been identified with the mythi- 
cal figure that appears in the Interlude and with 
the Blind Harry mentioned as a poet in Dunbar's 
Lament for the Makers. 



THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 111 

One " Blind (e) Hary " is mentioned on five oc- 
casions in the Treasurer's Accounts, during the 
years 1489-1491, as the recipient of small sums of 
money, varying from five to eighteen shillings, but 
without any indication whatever as to his station 
or the reason for the rewards.* The only remark in 
connection with his name is the entry twice " at 
the King's command." Critics have found con- 
firmation of the view that this Blind Harry was a 
minstrel in the fact that other persons of a min- 
strel character were similarly mentioned at or 
about the same time in the Accounts. There was, 
however., no system in the entries, and gifts to all 
sorts of persons were jumbled together. To judge 
only from the immediately adjoining context, he 
might have been a cobbler, a gunner, a courier, an 
usher, or a trumpeter, quite as well as a minstrel. 
All that we can safely assert on the basis of these 
official documents is that a person called Blind 
Harry was frequently in the King's employ in some 
subordinate position during the years mentioned. 
Apart from his name, there is nothing whatever, 
then, to connect this person with the author of the 
Wallace, and, considering how small are the gifts 
and how little is said of him, one would be justified 
in regarding him as an entirely distinct individual, 
either a mere hanger-on at court actually named 
Harry and blind, or one who bore the sobriquet 



112 THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 

Blind Harry as an assumed or familiar name. As 
Professor Kittredge reminds me, there were vari- 
ous historical persons who were called Adam Bell, 
Friar Tuck and Robin Hood. Professor Child 
points out no less than six Robin Hoods between 
30 Edward I and 10 Edward III, a period of less 
than forty years.* 

If, however, the actual Blind Harry of the rec- 
ords was indeed the Wallace-poet, that need cause 
no diflSculty about our regarding his name as a 
mere pseudonym. In the Treasurer's Accounts for 
about the same period in which Blind Harry ap- 
pears, are recorded several gifts to one Stobo, evi- 
dently the " maker " of that name to whom Dun- 
bar alludes: 

And he has now tane, last of aw, 

Gud gentill Stobo et Quintyne Schaw,t 

Of quham all wichtis hes pite. 

Several entries in the Accounts witness that, like 
Blind Harry, Stobo was rewarded " at the King's 
command," sometimes without mention of his em- 
ployment, sometimes for particular services, such 
as writing letters, or issuing proclamations. J In one 
case the King bought a horse from him, and in an- 
other gave him £10 for a ring and chain, which he 
took from him to give to a visitor. Stobo was one 
of the King's clerks, and we have a valuable docu- 



THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 113 

ment concerning him in the Exchequer Rolls, from 
which it appears that, on March 25, 1474, James 
III, by a charter under the Great Seal, granted him 
a pension of £20 yearly, in consideration of his 
clerical services.* But this entry in the Rolls refers 
to him as " John Reide, alias Stobo," and Stobo, 
it has been made clear, was only another name for 
a well-known churchman and notary. Sir John 
Reid, yet one which he bore so commonly that in 
the accounts no explanation of his identity was 
needed, any more than would have been a payment 
in our time to Buffalo Bill, Melba, or Mark Twain. 
Thus one of the clerks of the King's household, 
while Blind Harry was also there, one of the poets 
lamented by Dunbar along with Blind Harry, is 
mentioned in the Treasurer's Accounts and in Dun- 
bar's poem under his assumed or familiar name 
only.f 

Assumed or familiar names, in truth, were com- 
mon in Great Britain in the fifteenth century. In 
1497, for example, according to the Treasurer's Ac- 
counts, nine shillings were paid to two fiddlers who 
sang Gray Steil to James IV when he was holding 
court at Stirling, and we have evidence that the 
story of Eger and Grime, in which the mythical 
personage of that name was celebrated, was pop- 
ular in the circles in which the Wallace-poet lived. 



114 THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 

But this name Gray Steel was affectionately ap- 
plied by James V to Archibald Douglas of Kil- 
spendie. From Hume of Godscroft's history of the 
family of Douglas, we learn that the King, when 
he was young, loved Archibald " singularly well, 
for his ability of body, and was wont to call him 
Gray Steill." William, first Earl of Gowrie, also 
was given this name, perhaps for another cause, 
because the Gray Steel of romance owed his power 
to his being a magician of the " forbidden-coun- 
try," and Gowrie, according to Spottiswood, " was 
too curious, and said to have consulted with wiz- 
ards." * Furthermore, according to Dempster,! the 
poet Alexander Montgomery, " the Scottish Pin- 
dar," went by the sobriquet {vulgo vocatus) " Eques 
Montanus," the Highland Trooper.| 

A fellow-clerk of " gud, gentill Stobo " in the 
Secretary's office was Walter Chepman, one of the 
firm of Chepman and Myllar, the first printers of 
Scotland. Chepman seems to have been in the serv- 
ice of James IV during the whole of his reign. He 
and Myllar received a letter granting them an ex- 
clusive privilege of printing, on September 15, 
1507, and one of the first books they issued was 
Blind Harry's Wallace. No doubt the publishers 
knew who the poet was. It is probable that when 
his book was written there were many persons in 



THE MYTHICAL BLIND HARRY 115 

the secret, if secret it was. But it was to no Scot's 
advantage to discuss the authorship of the work 
pubhcly, and the real name of the writer became 
so soon disassociated from the poem as never to 
have reached the ears of Major, who knew only 
that he was called Blind Harry. 



CHAPTER VII 
The Real Author of the Wallace 

He was a man of middle age; 

In aspect manly, grave, and sage, 

As on king's errand come; 
But in the glances of his eye 
A penetrating, keen, and sly 

Expression found its home. 

Marmion 

TO all intents and purposes the Wallace is an 
anonymous book; but we can now speculate 
much more intelligently than ever before regarding 
the rank and character of the real author, since we 
need no longer treat his poem as the work of an 
abnormal, aflSicted man. Forgetting, then, if pos- 
sible, all that has been written about the poor old 
wandering minstrel of the critics' imagination, let 
us examine the Wallace just as we should any 
anonymous poem and seek from mternal evidence 
to discover the qualities of the writer. 

First, we naturally ask: what does he say of 
himself .'' Not much that is undisguised, it must be 
admitted, but a good deal that is worth attention. 
If any passage in the Wallace be autobiographical, 
it is the conclusion, where the poet emphasizes cer- 

116 



THE REAL AUTHOR 117 

tain conditions under which he says he wrote, and 
appeals to his readers for their indulgence. In some 
twoscore lines, he here reaffirms that he had dili- 
gently followed a Latin book by the hero's chaplain 
Master Blair; gives new would-be proofs of the 
reliability of that fabulous work, from which he 
asserts he departed but once and then only under 
strong pressure on the part of certain knights, who 
on one point caused him to " make a wrong rec- 
ord "; dwells upon the value of advancing the 
fame of noble Wallace, whose good deeds it was 
" great harm " to blot; and bespeaks the gratitude 
of " worthy men " for his own conscientious efforts 
to that end; after which he indulges in the follow- 
ing envoy: 

Go nobill buk, fulfiUyt off gud sentens, 
Suppos thow be baran of eloquens. 
Go wortlii buk, fulfillit off suthfast deid; 
Bot in langage off help thow has greit neid, 
Quhen gud makaris rang weill in to Scotland, 
Gret harm was it that nane of thaim ye fand. 
Jeit thar is part that can the weill awance; 
Now byd thi tym, and be a remembrance. 
I yow besek, off your beneuolence, 
Quha will nocht low, lak nocht my eloquence; 
It is weill knawin I am a burel man. 
For her is said as gudly as I can: 
My spreyt felys na termys asperans. 
Now besek God, that gyffar is off grace, 
Maide hell and erd, and set the hewyn abuff. 
That he ws grant off his der lestand luff. 



118 THE REAL AUTHOR 

These are the words of a clever, self-conscious, 
literary man, evidently intent on the impression 
his book is likely to make. He presents himself as 
particularly anxious to establish the truth of his 
matter (" though it be not pleasant to all ") while 
extremely modest with regard to his own artistic 
power. Insisting that he feigned not for friendship 
or for foes, he ostentatiously proclaims his work 
to be merely a faithful record of facts. 

In all his conclusion, it appears, the author was 
simply throwing dust in the eyes of credulous 
readers, to induce them the more willingly to fol- 
low his fictions. He was merely imitating the de- 
vices of that arch-impostor of the Middle Ages, 
Geoffrey of Monmouth, author of the Historia 
Regum Britanniae, who with similar humility as- 
serted his reliance solely on a mysterious book 
which he alone was privileged to possess, and with 
similar anxiety protested the soothfastness of his 
account, through it might not tally wholly with the 
information obtainable from other sources. 

Geoffrey, like Blind Harry, wrote with a political 
purpose, hoping to arouse pride of independence 
and encourage a martial spirit in his land, and he 
was wise enough not to maintain that he was him- 
self responsible for the perversion of past history 
that he presented. Writing in Latin, he declares 
that he had been given " a very ancient book in 



THE REAL AUTHOR 119 

the British tongue," which, in a continued regular 
story and elegant style, related the actions of all 
the kings of Britain from Brutus down. He claims 
that he got this book from one Walter, Archdeacon 
of Oxford, and makes bold to dedicate his composi- 
tion to Robert, Earl of Gloucester. " Of the matter 
now to be treated of, most noble Earl," so he be- 
gins his eleventh book, " Geoffrey of Monmouth 
shall be silent; but will, nevertheless, though in a 
mean style, briefly relate what he found in the Brit- 
ish book above mentioned, and heard from that 
most learned historian, Walter, Archdeacon of 
Oxford, concerning the wars which this renowned 
king [Arthur] upon his return to Britain after this 
victory, waged against his nephew." And he ends 
his work with a warning to his contemporaries, 
Caradoc of Llancarvan, William of Malmesbury 
and Henry of Huntingdon, to be silent about the 
kings of the Britons, " since they have not that 
book written in the British tongue, which Walter, 
Archdeacon of Oxford, brought out of Brittany, 
and which, being a true history published in honor 
of those princes, I have thus taken care to translate.'^ 
Geoffrey, moreover, explains with engaging mod- 
esty that while in the midst of his history he was 
obliged to publish the prophecies of Merlin, who 
was then " the subject of public discourse," be- 
cause urgently requested to do so by Alexander, 



120 THE REAL AUTHOR 

Bishop of Lincoln. He declares that he has merely 
translated Merlin's prophecies out of British into 
Latin and eagerly apologizes for his " low genius," 
entailing lack of polish and other faults. " Not- 
withstanding," he writes, " since the deference 
which is paid to your penetrating judgment will 
screen me from censure, I have employed my rude 
pen and in a coarse style present you with a trans- 
lation out of a language with which you are un- 
acquainted." * 

With like-purposed solemnity the Wallace-poet 
affirms his veracity. " I haiff had blayme to say the 
suthfastnes," he exclaims in the midst of his work,t 
with the tone of a martyr, and again at its end ap- 
peals to his readers to be grateful to him for having 
spared no travail to arrive at the truth. His general 
asseverations as to the trustworthiness of his nar- 
rative are plainly make-believe. As to his particular 
statements linked with them, that he was prom- 
ised no reward for his labor, that he had no 
" charge " from a king or other lord, that no man 
was bound to him for the " costs," — these are not 
capable of proof or disproof. Major takes up part 
of his preface to justify himself " in the eyes of 
those who pretend that it is not fitting to dedicate 
an historical work to any person, seeing that he 
who seeks for a patron must put on the mark of a 
flatterer rather than that of an historian, whose 



THE REAL AUTHOR 121 

first law is to write the truth "; and, if these words 
be not due to Blind Harry's, they may indicate 
that it was conventional at the time to disclaim 
the influence of a patron in order to establish the 
veracity of a narrative of events. 

Yet in one particular point. Blind Harry goes 
out of his way to note, he " said amiss "; in one 
small matter he really did depart somewhat from 
Master Blair! His " autour " affirmed that Wal- 
lace took the crown one day on Allerton Moor, but 
two knights of the poet's acquaintance, the lords 
Wallace of Craigie and Liddell, made him put the 
matter in a different way.* This is a curious avowal; 
the poet might have altered the text if he felt he 
was wrong, for there is no evidence that the con- 
clusion was not in the first form of his book. He 
doubtless consulted Wallace and Liddell about his 
material, as he asserts; but his statement looks as 
if it were chiefly pose to suggest his complete hon- 
esty, and to confirm the high authority of his 
" autour," Master Blair, whom he had come to 
recognize was never wrong, even when at variance 
with those of his contemporaries who ought best 
to know.f 

In any case, we should observe, the poet claims 
collusion with contemporary lords in misshaping 
his story. He was undoubtedly shrewd and ingen- 
ious, like the Archdeacon Geoffrey, not simple- 



122 THE REAL AUTHOR 

spirited like Geoffrey's successor, the parish priest 
Layamon. He knew who was who in his day. His 
epilogue was written for effect. 

Very innocently, too, like Geoffrey, he main- 
tains a humble mien, disclaiming any literary 
merit of his own. " Blaym nocht the buk, set 
[though] I be wnperfyt," he implores his readers; 
it is only a " rurall dyt."* The work is " noble " 
and *' worthy," but only because of its " good 
sentence; " he, the poet, was not of the old-time 
" gud makaris "; his language had great need of 
help; he lacked all eloquence; he must really be- 
seech his readers for their " benevolence." The fol- 
lowing words offer a clear example of mock 
modesty: 

It is Weill knawin I am a burel man. 
For her is said as gudly as I can. 
My spreyt felis na termys asperans. 

That passage alone ought to have sufficed to 
make everyone doubt the composition of the poem 
by any ignorant blind minstrel, not to mention 
Dunbar's naked dwarf. Its literary character leaps 
to the eyes. Nevertheless, critic after critic down 
to the present has seen fit to isolate the statement 
" I am a burel man," and use it as evidence that 
the author was of low degree. To do this argues, 
if not lack of candor, at least lack of acquaintance 
with early literature. What literary scholar but 



THE REAL AUTHOR 123 

ought to feel himself transported by the envoy 
straight into the realm of Chaucer, Lydgate, 
Hawes, the author of the Court of Love, Spenser, 
and many others ? Some at least, before seeing Mr. 
Brown's valuable comments on the passage,* had 
recalled in connection with it the words of the 
Franklin : 

But, sires, by-cause / am a hurel man, 

At my bigynnyng first I you biseche 

Have me excused of my rude speche; 

I lerned never rethoryk certeyn; 

Thyng that I speke it moot be bare and pleyn. 

My spirit feleth noght of swich matere 
But if you list, my tale shul ye here.f 

Blind Harry almost certainly had this very pas- 
sage in mind when he wrote, but, in truth, apolo- 
getic envoys like his were common among sophis- 
ticated writers, in Scotland as well as in England. 
I shall cite here but one, and that partly for an- 
other reason, from the Quare of Jelusy,X an elabo- 
rate poem, conjectured to have been written about 
1480 by one of Blind Harry's immediate circle. 
Master James Auchinleck, " servitor " or secretary 
to the Earl of Ross, and at the time of his death 
(1497) chantor of Caithness in the Cathedral 
Church of Dornoch — the James Afflek noted, 
along with Master John Clerk, for " ballat-making 



124 THE REAL AUTHOR 

and tragedie," whom Dunbar bewails in his La- 
ment. Near the beginning of the poem, we read : * 

And of my termes, and my rude endite, 
Excusith me, sett [though] thai be inperfyte, 
Beseking you at lovis hie reuerence; 
Takith gude will in stede of eloquence. 

And again at the end: 

Sou loueris all rycht hertly I exhort, 
This litill write helpith to support. 
Excusith it, and tak no maner hede 
To the endyte, for it most bene of nede, 
Ay simpill wit furth schewith sympilnese. 
And of vnconnjTig cummith aye rudnese. 
But sen here ar no termes eloquent, 
Belevith the dyte, and takith l>e entent. 

The more carefully one compares this passage 
with that above quoted from the Wallace, the 
more evident it becomes that they follow the same 
literary convention. It is specially worthy of note, 
however, that the Wallace resembles the Quare in 
that it is written in a combination of heroic coup- 
lets and stanzas like those in Chaucer's Anelida. 
Such elegance was suitable to the Quare type of 
poem; it startles in a biography like the Wallace. 

To indicate the similar character of the writing, 
as well as to illustrate the identical metre, a stanza 
from each of the poems is here given. From the 
Quare: f 



THE REAL AUTHOR 125 

Quho schall me help, allace! for to endite, 
For to be waill, to compleyne, and to write 

This vice, that now so large is and commoun ? 
What sail I say ? quhom sail I awite ? 
For hie, nor law, is non estate to quite! 

Now all hath fele of thilke poysoun. 

Allace! this false and wickit condicioun, 
The lustyhede, and every glade delyte 

Hath of Jjis world full nere ybroght a doun. 

And this from the Wallace, the sixth of a series of 
twenty-one regarding the hero when a captive: * 

Compleyn, Sanctis thus, as your sedull tellis; 
Compleyn to hewyn with wordis that nocht fellis: 

Compleyne your woice wnto the God abuffe; 
Compleyne for him in to that sitfull sell is; 
Compleyne his payne in dolour thus that duellis ; 

In langour lyis, for losyng of thar luff. 

His fureous payne was felloune for to pruff. 
Compleyne also, yhe birdis, blyth as bellis. 

Sum happy chance may fall for your behuff. 

Like the author of the Quare, the Wallace-poet 
had skill " to bewail, to complain, and to write." 
He knew all the gentle art of " enditing " with 
many a rhetorical question, such as " Quhat suld 
I mor of Wallace turment tell ? " and many an 
" Alas! " in the following fluent passage: f 

Allace, Scotland, to quhom sail thou compleyn! 
Allace, fra payn quha sail the now restreyn! 
Allace, thi help is fastlie brocht to groimd, 
Thi [best] chyftane in braith bandis is bound! 



126 THE REAL AUTHOR 

Allace, thow has now lost thi gyd off lycht! 
Allace, quha sail defend the in thi rycht ? 
Allace, thi payn approchis wondyr ner, 
With sorow sone thow mon bene set in f yr ! 

And so on for another dozen lines ! 

All will agree that the author of the Wallace 
wrote with entire ease and competence in the arti- 
ficial manner of courtly poets. The " high style " 
that he employs, of a type natural to such books 
as the Quare addressed to " Lovers," is evidently 
out of place in a realistic account of fierce war. But 
the inference as to the character of the poet is 
all the more important if his decoration is merely 
lugged in for show. He plainly belonged to a so- 
phisticated group who aimed at literary display. 

Being used, it would seem, to poetical orna- 
ments, he was loth to forego them even in the Wal- 
lace. If he was not actually enamoured of current 
literary conventions, how else can we explain the 
hackneyed nature-preludes, astrological and myth- 
ological allusions, ruminations on Fortune, in- 
veighing (with examples) against " coveitise," and 
the like, that, from our point of view, mar the 
book. Surely only a rhetorician would write of 
Wallace in balanced phrase: 

Now want, now has; now loss, now can wyn; 
Now lycht, now sadd; now blisful, now in baill; 
In haist, now hurt; now sorouffuU, now haUl; 



THE REAL AUTHOR 127 

Nowe weildand weyle; now calde weddyr, now hett; 
Nowe moist, now drowth; now wauerand wynd, now weit. 
So ferd with hym for Scotlandis rycht ful ewyn, 
In feyle debait vi Jeris and monethis sewyn.* 

" In frustyr [vain] termys I will nocht tary lang," 
the poet says directly after this outburst. He knew 
he was indulging in the very " eloquence " the lack 
of which, following convention, he asked his readers 
to excuse in his writing. 

Professor Skeat and Mr. Brown f have pointed 
out plain borrowings from Chaucer on Blind 
Harry's part, and Mr. Brown in particular has 
shown how much he derived from the Knight's 
Tale and Troilus.X Professor Childs has further 
developed the point. That Blind Harry was a dis- 
ciple of Chaucer, is an important fact to remember 
if we would estimate aright the value of certain 
** I " passages in the Wallace, to which we now 
turn. Recalling how Chaucer by convention as- 
serted imperfection in the art of love, and declared 
he was far from the god of love's help " in derk- 
nesse," we shall not attach any autobiographical 
significance to the aside of Blind Harry after telling 
of his hero's welcome of the woman of St. Johnston 
in her chamber: 

Quhat at thai wrocht, I can nocht graithly say; 
Rycht wnperfyt I am of Venus play.§ 



128 THE REAL AUTHOR 

It has not been hitherto noted, but it is certainly 
true, and deserves mention here, that the poet de- 
veloped the story of Marian Bradfute * with that 
of Cressida in mind. 

Another would-be personal reference, of which 
some critics have made a good deal, may be dis- 
posed of in the same way. In the Knight's Tale, 
after raising a question of foreknowledge, Palamon 
remarks: " Th' answer e of this I lete to divynis,^^ and 
the knight himself later inserts a remark regarding 
that hero dead: 

His spirit chaunged hous, and wente ther. 

As I cam never, I can nat tellen wher. 

Therefor I stinte, 7 nam no divinistre; 

Of soules finde I nat in tliis registre. 

Ne me ne list thilke opiniouns to telle 

Of hem, though that they wry ten wher they dwelle.f 

In the same fashion, as has already been remarked. 
Blind Harry raises the subtle question of Faw- 
doun's ghost, as difficult for Wallace as that of the 
ghost of Hamlet's father for Horatio, and, after 
some discussion of devils intent on malice, con- 
tinues: 

Be sic myschieff giff his men mycht be lost, 
Drowynt or slayne amang the Inglis ost; 
Or quhat it was in liknes of Faudoun, 
Quhilk brocht his men to suddand confusioun; 
Or giff the man endyt in ewill entent, 
Sum wikkit spreit agayne for him present; 



THE REAL AUTHOR 129 

I can nocht spek of sic diuinite. 

To clerkis I will lot all sic materis be: 

Bot of Wallace, furth I will yow tell* 

Just previous to this, after telling of Wallace's 
slaying of Fawdoun (a man, he had noted,! who 
was "melancholy of complexion"), Blind Harry 
paused to pass judgment in what might be re- 
garded as an open question, saying with sober 
modesty : 

Sum demys it to ill, and othyr sum to gud; 
And I say her, into tliir termys rude, 
Better it was he did, as thinkis me.X 

" First," he begins as a logician, then goes on to 
state his argument, and concludes: 

Mycht he do ocht bot tyne him as it was ? 
Fra this questioun now schortlye will I pass, 
Deyme as yhe lest, ye that best can and may; 
I bot rahers as my autour will say. 

Here Blind Harry clearly wrote with the 
Knight's Tale in mind. In a passage shortly after 
that in which appear the words " Th' answere of 
this I lete to divynis," we read: 

Yow loveris axe I now this questioun. 
Who hath the worse, Arcite or Palamoun ? 
That oon may seen his lady day by day. 
But in prison he moot dwelle alway. 
That other wher him list may ryde or go. 
But seen his lady shal he never-mo, 
Now demeth as yow liste, ye that can. 
For I wol telle forth as I bigan.§ 



130 THE REAL AUTHOR 

The Knight's Tale, it has been recognized, is 
indeed fundamentally a tale of " questions." 
Chaucer even makes the plot hinge on a debate 
between Palamon and Arcite, a question of love- 
theory as to who best deserved Emelye. 

Greet was the stryf and long bitwixe hem tweye, 
If that I hadde leyser for to seye.* 

In the Franklin's Tale, the question is openly 
stated in the final words: 

Lordinges, this question wolde I aske yow. 
Which was the moste free, as thinketh yow ? 
Now telleth me, er that yeferther wende. 
I can na-more, my tale is at an ende. 

The Wallace-poet was similarly given to questions. 
A good example on his side is in the passage be- 
ginning ^^ At men off wit this questioun her I as{k)," 
where he goes on to compare his hero with other 
nobles who fought against England, and ends 

Quhilk hald ye for the best ? 
Rycht clayr it is to ransek tliis questioim: 
Deyme as ye lest, gud men of discrecioun; 
To my sentence breyffly will I pass.j 

Still another question is posed in the extremely 
interesting stanza where the poet appeals to " all 
worthi men that has gud witt to waille" to judge in 
favor of Wallace as against Bruce. | The latter was 
indeed the " heir " of the kingdom and had the 
"right," but Wallace was "baulder in battaill" 



THE REAL AUTHOR 131 

and thrice saved the realm by his might (" right 
vs. might" in a new sense!). Which then was the 
better man to rule ? The passage is as ingenious 
as mendacious, the thought at this point as subtle 
as the metre. 

Blind Harry's questionings were merely imita- 
tive of Chaucer. He was no ecclesiastic, but he had 
a clerkly interest in disputation. He had, moreover, 
as many readers have observed with wonderment, 
considerable knowledge of antiquity, astrology, 
and mythology, and claimed to have drawn his 
material from a Latin book. Even though his as- 
severations on that subject are mere artifice, as 
will presently appear,* it is hardly credible that he 
should have made such a claim if he could not read 
Latin. t He may not have been a " gud makar," 
but he certainly had ambitions in that direction; 
he appealed openly to an audience of men of wit 
and discretion; he had " lerned retorik, certeyn." 

Remembering that Chaucer based his Troilus 
on an Italian poem by Boccaccio, and not on a 
Latin work by " Lollius," as he claims, that he 
greatly amplified and altered his " auctor's " mat- 
ter, that he was a " servant of Venus " all his days, 
and in the Troilus sought, with infinite care, using 
all the art he could master, to write a great poem of 
love, the following stanzas from the Prologue of 
the second book are instructive: 



132 THE REAL AUTHOR 

O lady myn, that called art Cleo, 

Thou be my speed fro this forth, and my muse, 

To ryme wel tliis book, til I have do; 

Me nedeth her noon other art to use. 

For-why to every lovere I me excuse. 

That of no sentement I this endyte. 

But out of Latin in my tonge it wryte. 

Wherefore I nil have neither thank ne blame 
Of al this werk, but pray yow mekely, 
Disblameth me, if any word be lame. 
For as myn auctor seyde, so seye I. 
Eek though I speke of love unfelingly. 
No wonder is, for it no-thing of newe is; 
A bUnd man can nat juggen wel in hewis. 

*' Go, litel book," says Chaucer at the end of his 
great work, and " subgit be to alle poesy e." " Go, 
nobill buk," says Blind Harry, with similar ambi- 
tion. Chaucer was ready to " kiss the steps " of the 
supreme poets of antiquity. Blind Harry those of 
his supreme predecessor in Britain. Each dwelt on 
the " sentence " of his work, while sparing no pains 
to display art. The Wallace is one of the most care- 
ful and correct poems in Scots. That it is not more 
beautiful in form or feeling, is due merely to the 
limitations of the author's talent and temperament. 

The Wallace, like the Troilus, ends with an ap- 
peal to God, Creator and giver of grace, in the 
name of heavenly love. But just before that, each 
poet mentions two of his contemporaries who 



THE REAL AUTHOR 133 

either have already corrected, or are asked to cor- 
rect, the poem " ther nede is." We must assume 
that " moral Gower " and " philosophical Strode " 
knew perfectly well where Chaucer got the chief 
material of his poem, and that he had departed 
from his " auctor " as he had seen fit.* We have 
no record that they protested at his novelties, any 
more than William of Malmesbury and Caradoc 
of Llancarvan at Geoffrey of Monmouth's after 
he referred to these worthies in his new-found His- 
tory. We may surmise that Blind Harry's reference 
to the knights Wallace and Liddell, who could well 
estimate the " originality " of his treatment of the 
war of independence, was conceived in a similar 
sly mood, and disarmed any protest they or others 
like them may have been inclined to make. 

The Wallace-poet was eager to explain that he 
had no " charge " (commission) from any king or 
lord to write his book; that no one had promised 
him reward for his labor; that no one was bound 
to him for the costs of the undertaking. But he 
does not indicate that he would refuse considera- 
tion if it was offered. " Thar is part that can 
the(e) Weill awance," he says suggestingly in his 
envoy, and seems there almost to be making an 
indirect plea for help, a sort of hinting complaint 
for (if not to) an empty purse. We recall Chaucer's 
envoy: 



134 THE REAL AUTHOR 

O conqueror of Brutes Albioun ! 
Which that by line and free eleccioun 
Ben verray king, this song to you I sende; 
And ye, that mowen al our harm amende, 
Have minde up-on my supplicacioim. 

And we wonder for what purpose the Wallace- 
poet indulged in long digressions in praise of noble 
persons, such as Sir John Ramsay: 

Schir Jhon Ramsay, that rychtwys ayr was borne 
OS Ouchterhous, and othir landis was lord, 
And schirreff als, as my buk wUl record; 
Off nobHl blud, and als haill ancestre; 
Contenyt weill with wortlii chewalre.* 

This is not the only passage where Blind Harry 
goes out of his way to praise noble persons. He was 
probably not above arranging things right for his 
friends, even though he was not " promised " re- 
ward. His much-protesting about not feigning " for 
friendship nor for foes " makes one suspicious. 
But it was only just, he may have argued, that he 
should praise those who " rabellit nocht contrar 
thair richtwis croun," f and any noble might well 
have been grateful to him, in a time when rebels 
and traitors were abroad, if that noble's ancestors 
were conspicuously placed among the loyalists in 
the great struggle against the invader.| 

Mr. Brown connected the praise of the Ramsays 
with the fact that the scribe of the poems was a 



THE REAL AUTHOR 135 

Ramsay, and tried to show that Blind Harry, the 
ignorant minstrel, had a collaborator named Sir 
John Ramsay, whom he identified with the Ross 
Herald.* Obviously, I do not subscribe to that view. 
I can find no evidence whatever that the author of 
the Wallace had any collaborator. But Mr. Brown 
was justified in calling attention to the frequent 
mention of heralds in the poem as a matter of sig- 
nificance, for it is more than likely that the author 
was himself a herald, one of the class of whom 
Chaucer speaks in the House of Fame: 

pursevauntes and heraudes. 
That cryen riche folkes laudes. 

If it had not been for his preconception of a 
" blind bard," Thomas Warton would probably 
have proposed herald-authorship of the Wallace, 
for immediately after his discussion of the poem, 
which he thought translated from the Latin, and 
from which he quotes some eight pages to show the 
poet's mastery in painting, his terse and elegant 
style, and allegorical invention, he goes on directly 
to speak of various historical romances many of 
which appear to have been written by heralds. 
*' It was customary," he states, to " appoint none 
to this office [of herald] but persons of discernment, 
address, experience, and some degree of education. 
. . . They were necessarily connected with the 



136 THE REAL AUTHOR 

minstrels at public festivals and thence acquired a 
facility of reciting adventures. . . . They fre- 
quently received fees or largesse in common with 
the minstrels." 

The Wallace-poet emphasizes the role of heralds 
in three notable scenes. The first is in the sixth 
book, where Edward I is pictured with a fabulous 
host of sixty thousand men at Biggar, making a 
demand of submission from Wallace, who repudi- 
ates it violently. 

The awfull king gert twa harroldis be brocht, 
GaifiF thaim commaund, in all the haist thai mocht, 
To charge Wallace, that he sulde cum him till, 
Witht out promys, and put him in his will. 

The heralds are clearly instructed as to what they 
shall say to the hero on their arrival. As soon as 
they are received by him, they offer their " cre- 
dence " (credentials) and he reads the summons in 
the presence of his knights, asks the messengers 
whether they prefer to have his answer " be wryt 
or word," and when they ask for it in writing, 
indites in haste his defiant reply, beginning " thow 
reyffar king " — words which have been skilfully 
used by Mr. Neilson to determine the date of the 
poem, for they seem to reflect circumstances of 
the poet's own day. 

This wryt he gaiff to the harraldis but mar, 
And gud reward he gart delyuer thaim thar. 



THE REAL AUTHOR 1S7 

The " good reward " is sarcastic. First Wallace 
has the head removed from a young squire Fehew 
(Fitz Hugh), a nephew of King Edward, who has 
accompanied the heralds in disguise. 

A cot off armes he tuk on him but baid; 
With the harroldis full prewaly he raid. 

Having been detected by Wallace's strange com- 
panion Jop, alias Grimsby, who was formerly a 
" pursiwant " of Edward, he is thus made to suffer 
for wearing " feigned arms." One herald has his 
tongue removed, and another has his eyes put out. 
Then the two are sent back to their " false " king, 
whose anger at the " despitfull " deed knows no 
bounds. The deed was assuredly " a fell outrage " 
as he declared, even if the reason given, that the 
heralds were " fals till armys and maynsuorn," 
was true. At all events, the author knew circum- 
stances under which a herald might justifiably, ac- 
cording to custom, be severely punished.* 

Of course, this whole episode is fiction. Edward 
was not even in Scotland at the time assigned. He 
had no nephew Fitz Hugh. No such battle as is 
described ever took place at Biggar. The mutila- 
tion of the heralds, also, is happily unconfirmed 
by fact, — so far, at least, as concerns any such 
deed on the part of William Wallace. 

In glaring contrast with the attitude of the false 
Edward, the noble king of France is said to have 



138 THE REAL AUTHOR 

admired the " conqueror " Wallace and longed to 
have the " great delight " of seeing him. He there- 
fore dispatches a herald, rehearses to him his in- 
tent, and sends him off with a " closed letter," the 
substance of which in ceremonial form is recorded. 
The herald seeks Wallace's presence properly and 
" salutes him with honor reverently." Wallace re- 
ceives him " with lawly obeysance," and asks his 
" credence," which is handed him by the herald, 
with new ceremonies and respects, whereupon Wal- 
lace bids him welcome " with a fre hartly will," 
and says he shall soon have his answer. 

The harrold baid, on to the xxty day, 
With Wallace still, in gud weillfayr and play; 
Contende the tyme with worschip and plesance; 
Be gud awys maid his deliuerance. 
With his awn hand he wrait on to the king 
All his entent, as twyching to this thing, 
Rycht rych reward he gaiff the harrold to, 
And him conwoyde, quhen he had leyff to go. 
Out oflF the toun with gudly cumpanye. 
His leyff he tuk, syn went on to the se.* 

Then an account is given of the herald's return, 
via La Rochelle, " sekand the king, als gudly as he 
may," until he reaches the royal court at Paris, 
" peirles off renoun." He is well received and tells 
his monarch the result of his mission, commending 
Wallace highly, and communicating his letter — 
" this hie affect and dyt off hys writyng " — the 



THE REAL AUTHOR 139 

statement in formal language that he would visit 
him within a year. 

Again, in that still more preposterous scene * 
where the Queen of England tries unsuccessfully to 
enamour Wallace and cajole him to her will, we 
hear much talk of heralds and their safe-conducts 
in carrying on a negotiation for peace. Three lords, 
chosen as messengers and provided with the King's 
seal, sought Wallace, and showed him " many 
subtle case." Wallace heard all their " sopham- 
mis," but got his own terms. " For nakyn thing 
the pees thai wald nocht faill." 

It will be noticed that every scene in which 
heralds play a leading part is a concoction of the 
poet's, without any historical justification. All 
the more importance should surely attach to these 
incidents if borrowed or invented; they would 
seem to show on his part special interest in heralds. 

One remark in the poem, however, may be 
thought to show that the author was not a herald 
himself. In an interesting passage he stops his nar- 
rative to start a " discussion " as to what con- 
stitutes a lord, saying: 

Wallace a lord he may be clepyt weyll, 

Thocht ruryk folk tharofif haiff litill feill; 

Na deyme na lord, bot landis be thair part. 

Had he the warld, and be wracliit ofiF hart. 

He is no lord as to the worthines; 

It can nocht be, but (without) fredome, lordlyknes. 



140 THE REAL AUTHOR 

At the Roddis thai mak ful mony ane, 

Quhilk worthy ar, thocht landis haiflf thai nane. 

This disscussyng I leiff herroldis till end* 

The style of this reference is parallel to the re- 
marks, already discussed, in which the poet follows 
Chaucer, but, considered in the light of what pre- 
cedes, it may mean somewhat more. It may well 
be compared with one by Holland,! where he re- 
lieves himself of telling further of the arms of the 
knights he mentions by referring the matter to 
heralds : 

Now giff I sail schewe 
The order of thar armis, it war to tell teir (hard), 
The barris of best gold, thocht I thaim hele knewe. 
It suld ws occupy all day; tharfor I end heir, 
Referris vie to harraldis, to tell ^ow the hale.X 

Holland was secretary to the Earl of Moray and 
wrote his book at Darnaway Castle. Whether or 
no he was actually a herald in practice, he knew 
completely, as he takes pains to assert, the order 
of arms. Blind Harry borrowed other features from 
Holland and may have imitated him here. His 
knowledge of heralds impresses one as intimate 
and real. His referring of the dispute about lord- 
ship to them may have been only a way of ending 
his own remarks, made with a graceful bow to his 
superior comrades in the profession. 



THE REAL AUTHOR 141 

Another parallel may be cited from a Scotch 
poem on heraldry, contained in a book of Sir Wil- 
liam Cummyns's of Inverallochy, Marchmond 
Herald, of about the year 1500 (not far from the 
date of the Wallace) and composed with much 
artifice in the Troilus stanza.* The author makes 
himself out to be a person of " simplest conceit " 
and on certain topics refers to his betters. 

How thai be born, in quhat kindis, and quhare. 
Also be quhom, and eftir in excellence. 

That I refer to my lordis to declair, 
Kingis of armes, and heraldis of prudens. 
And persewantis, and grant my negligens 

That I suld not attempe thus to commoune, 

Bot of ther grace, correctioune, and pardonne. 

The same sort of deference appears in his con- 
clusion: 

And I confess my simple insufficiens: 
Litill haf I sene, and reportit weil less. 

Of this materis to haf experience. 

Tharfor, quhar I al neidful not express, 
In my waiknes, and not of wilfulnes. 

My seid lordis correk me diligent, 

To maid menis, or sey the remanent. 

This poem shows at least that at the latter part 
of the fifteenth century one Scottish herald was 
ready to compose Chaucerian verse, and that self- 
depreciation was for such as he a convention. 



142 THE REAL AUTHOR 

Of more interest for us, however, is the fact that 
the chief Scottish poet of the sixteenth century, Sir 
David Lyndsay, whom we have had so often oc- 
casion to quote, was a herald. About 1529 Lynd- 
say, who had served James V as attendant in boy- 
hood, was appointed Lyon King at Arms, and 
filled that important post until his death in 1555. 
As Lyon Herald, Lyndsay supervised the prepara- 
tion of the elaborate Register of Arms of the Scot- 
tish nobility and gentry, which was completed in 
1542 and is now preserved in the Advocates' Li- 
brary at Edinburgh.* One of his last duties was to 
preside at a chapter of heralds convened at Holy- 
rood for the trial and punishment of William 
Crawar, a messenger, for abuse of his function. 
With such a distinguished poet as an example, it 
need not surprise any one if the Wallace was com- 
posed by a herald. t 

Heralds, of course, were regularly used as mes- 
sengers, and if Blind Harry was a herald-messenger 
by profession, it would explain why the topo- 
graphy of the Wallace is so exact, a feature to 
which Mr. Brown has called particular attention. J 

One king's messenger, who is frequently men- 
tioned near Blind Harry in the Treasurer's Ac- 
counts, and who bore the very name of Wallace, 
also played a role which it is important to consider. 
He appears in the Accounts as the bearer of letters 



THE REAL AUTHOR 143 

to Lamerik, to the abbots of Galloway, the Earl of 
Erroll, to the Lords Gray, Glamis, and Olyfant, 
and to others. He was given money to pass " a 
ij dyverss tymis owre the water with letteris to 
summonde certane personis in Awdy "; " to pass in 
Fyfe to warne the lardis to meyt the King to pass 
with him to Sanct Johniston "; "to pass with the 
Kingis lettrez to the lordis in Lowdiane and the 
Mers for warning to the raids," etc.* For us it is 
most noteworthy, however, that this Wallace, as 
we are informed in the Accounts, " tauld geistis 
to the king," and may therefore have been called 
a minstrel. 

The heralds, messengers, and minstrels of a 
court were closely associated both in life and pro- 
fession. Blind Harry himself groups heralds and 
minstrels together as alike rewarded abundantly 
by the admirable Queen of England, who besought 
them to be her friends. f There is, in truth, no 
reason why Blind Harry may not be called a " min- 
strel," if it is understood that that term may be 
properly used of a dignified person in high employ. 
Many critics seem to be unaware that there were 
as many diflPerent kinds of minstrels in the four- 
teenth and fifteenth centuries as there are actors 
to-day. There were some so-called of a disreput- 
able vagabond type, " otio addicti," against 
whom acts of parliament were directed, and some 



144 THE REAL AUTHOR 

of a pathetic type, " blind crowders," who sang 
ballads for a pittance. But there were others who 
might almost be called poets-laureate. Two of the 
most interesting biographies of great leaders in 
Wallace's time and shortly after, those of Bertrand 
du Guesclin and the Black Prince, were written in 
French verse by dignified minstrels in the service 
of nobles. On the one hand. La Vie du Prince 
Noir * was composed in octosyllabic couplets in a 
" romantic " style, not unlike that of Barbour, by 
the herald of the Earl of Chandos. On the other 
hand. La Vie Vaillant Bertran du Guesclin f was 
written in long lines in " epic " style by a minstrel 
Cuvelier, and dedicated to a prince. Blind Harry 
is a sort of Scottish Cuvelier brought up on 
Chaucer, and any one with patience would find it 
very instructive to compare The Acts and Deeds 
of the Illustrious and Valiant Champion Sir Wil- 
liam Wallace with the huge chanson de geste, 
nearly twice as long (22790 lines), concerning the 
great Constable of France of the early thirteenth 
century, like Wallace a foe of the English. In 
features large and small, the Wallace reminds one 
of this " chronicle " of the dispute regarding the 
succession in Brittany and subsequent events in 
which Bertrand played, or could be made to play, 
a part, and both authors wrote in the same uncon- 
strained fashion as to facts. The term " minstrel " 



THE REAL AUTHOR 145 

was also applied to one of the chief French writers 
of the early fourteenth century, Watriquet de 
Couvin, the eulogist of Gauchier de Chatillon, 
Bertrand's successor as Constable, a poet who in- 
fluenced Chaucer in painting his portrait of the 
illustrious Knight.* The Wallace-poet might have 
felt honored in the company of such as these. If 
Blind Harry was really reputed as a " ministrel " 
to princes — Major makes no mention of peasants 
— it would have been easy for that learned man to 
have written about him as he did in his Latin his- 
tory, and knowing nothing about his personality 
save what he took his name to indicate, but recog- 
nizing that the poet was peritus in his carmen, he 
might very naturally, according to the custom of 
the time, have hinted as he did at a likeness to the 
greatest of blind bards. 

None, it has been made evident, of the might-be 
autobiographical references in the Wallace turn out 
on inspection to be of definite value in determining 
who the author was, but they show the character 
of his literary training, and by inference his station. 

As is evident from his solicitude to make Wal- 
lace " gentle born," and his disdain for MacFadden 
because " low born he was and of low simple 
blood," " of right low birth, suppose he took on 
hand," f as well as from other considerations, the 
poet was sympathetic to the higher classes, whether 



146 THE REAL AUTHOR 

or no he belonged to them himself. In his discussion 
of nobility, already quoted, he set himself against 
" ruryk (rustic) folk," who have "litill feill " in 
such matters, matters that greatly interested him.* 
The fact that he shows no signs of much inner re- 
finement, or cosmopolitanism, does not affect the 
question of his birth. The burly person who wrote 
the rough alliterative poem on Flodden in which 
we read " a gentleman by Jesu this geste made! " f 
was a follower, perhaps a herald, of the house 
of Stanley. The Wallace-poet in any case was 
certainly no quiet scholar or amiable, chivalric 
ecclesiastic, like Barbour, but a vigorous propa- 
gandist, a ferocious realpolitiker, without principle 
when it was a question of Scotland's place in the 
sun, without reluctance to lie in manipulating his- 
tory to his own end.| He was no common strolling 
bard. 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Purpose and Spirit of the Wallace 

'T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, 
And coming events cast their shadows before. 

LochieVs Warning 

O, from this time forth. 
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! 

Hamlet 

WE can better understand why the author of 
the Wallace chose his pseudonym if we con- 
sider the political circumstances under which he 
wrote and certain contemporary methods of in- 
fluencing public opinion; and we can better under- 
stand the spirit of his work if we consider the 
background of pagan morality which the pseu- 
donym connotes. 

Thanks to Mr. George Neilson, we are at last in 
a position to date the Wallace pretty exactly. Mr. 
Neilson's chief argument * is drawn from the 
epithet " reyflFar," applied by Wallace to Edward I, 
which he has shown to be merely an echo of words 
used in an Act of the Scottish Parliament in 1482 
regarding Edward IV. 

" The * Revare Edward/ " he says, " of himself 
alone is conclusive of the date of Harry's poem, and 



148 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 

is so much the more satisfactory in that respect as 
supplying the clearest possible explanation of the 
bitterness of spirit at the core of the poem, the 
malignant ruthlessness it displays towards Eng- 
lishmen, and the glaring failure of the poet to re- 
deem the hereditary sense of enmity by associating 
it with any generous note towards an enemy so 
worthy of the Scottish steel. In all these respects 
it is far as the poles asunder from Barbour's Bruce, 
which, never vindictive or savage, achieves its 
purpose of patriotism in the spirit of chivalry with- 
out the incessant vengeance and refusal of quarter 
which make Harry's Wallace reek of the shambles. 
Written in or about 1482 or 1483, the poem was 
shaped when Scotland and England were at war, 
when Edward IV, intriguing with the exiled Duke 
of Albany and Earl of Douglas, was the object of 
intense exasperation. He had supported Albany's 
pretension to the crown, and fomented every trea- 
son against the Scottish throne; his armies had over- 
run the borders with fire and sword; his fleets had 
assailed — though not with impunity — Scottish 
ships in the Firth of Forth; and his bargain with 
Albany was that, as the price of English support, 
Albany, if successful in winning the kingdom, 
should hold it as Edward's feudatory, and should 
further cede to him the fortresses of Berwick and 
Lochmaben and the territories of Liddesdale and 



THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 149 

Eskdale and Annandale. There was justification, 
therefore, for Scottish indignation against such a 
policy of conquest by intrigue and against a ' king 
of reyff .' 

" The phrase was radically a Lancastrian taunt. 
Scotland had long, and with fair consistency, fa- 
vored the red rose. Margaret of Anjou and Henry 
VI had once found shelter in exile at the Scottish 
court. The French and the Scots were leagued en- 
emies of the House of York. Edward IV, the York- 
ist victor, veritably enough a ' king of reyff ' in 
England, had both by war and policy become a 
* revare ' in Scotland too, and the country was up 
in arms. Of the national indignation Harry's poem 
is a passionate expression. Tending so directly to 
explain its violence and ruthlessness of tone, the 
ascertainment of its date thus considerably intensi- 
fies its political and historical significance. In vir- 
tue of this explanation, it becomes of real value 
historically, as reflecting the vehemence of Scot- 
tish antagonism to England and Edward IV, circa 
1483." 

Now, it is important for us to observe that at 
that very time belief in prophets was real, even in 
high quarters,* and it was the custom to use popu- 
lar delusions regarding political prophecy to arouse 
national bitterness. Thomas Rhymer and Merlin 
were then particularly famous personages and 



150 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 

their vaticinations counted as of genuine value. 
The greater part of the documents later comprised 
in that extremely popular book, the Whole Proph- 
ecy of Scotland* prophecies of Bede, Banister, 
Waldhave, and Bridlington, as well as of True 
Thomas and Merlin, were then widely current, and 
influential, to a degree that we nowadays find it 
hard to credit, in engendering strife. It will be re- 
membered how Bacon in his time took sober note 
of such prophecies, giving it as his judgment " that 
they ought all to be despised, and ought to serve 
but for winter-talk by the fireside." " Though," he 
adds, " when I say despised, I mean it as for belief, 
for otherwise the spreading or publishing of them 
is in no sort to be despised. For they have done 
much mischief, and I see many severe laws made 
to suppress them. That that hath given them grace 
and some credit consisteth in three things. First, 
that men mark when they hit and never mark when 
they miss; as they do generally of dreams. The 
second is, that probable conjectures, or obscure 
traditions, many times turn themselves into proph- 
ecies; while the nature of man, which coveteth divi- 
nation, thinks it no peril to foretell that which 
indeed they do but collect. . . . The third and last 
(which is the great one) is, that almost all of them, 
being infinite in number, have been impostures, 
and by idle and crafty brains merely contrived and 



THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 151 

feigned, after the event passed." This last aspect 
of prophecies is for us the most important. But 
criticism was of no avail and the vogue continued. 
" Perhaps it may be thought," says Lord Hailes, 
in his Remarks on the History of Scotland (1773), 
" that I have bestowed unnecessary pains in dis- 
crediting the popular predictions ascribed to 
Thomas the Rhymer. Let it, however, be consid- 
ered that the name of Thomas the Rhymer is not 
forgotten in Scotland, nor his authority altogether 
slighted even at this day. Within the memory of 
man, his prophecies, and the prophecies of other 
Scottish soothsayers, have not only been reprinted, 
but have been consulted with a weak, if not crimi- 
nal, curiosity." 

Quite recently. Dr. Rupert Taylor, in a valuable 
thesis,* has traced the source of political prophecy 
after its vogue was established by Geoffrey of Mon- 
mouth in the twelfth century, and has made it 
evident that historians have paid far too little heed 
to its importance in determining popular feeling 
at crises in the relations of England and Scotland. 
Here I need only dwell on certain evidence of 
special interest to us which Dr. Taylor omitted, 
that, namely, of Major, who has much to say of 
the prophets of Great Britain. 

Merlin interested Major particularly.! He de- 
votes a whole chapter to him, in which he discusses 



152 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 

at length the mage's incubus origin and the rela- 
tion of that fact to his gift of prophecy.* But he 
also treats him humanly as a potent personage in 
British history, rebuking him, on moral grounds, 
for helping King Uther in the deception of 
Ygerne. " Many rhymes," says Major, " are cur- 
rent as to all that Merlin foretold in the presence of 
King Vortiger as about to happen. But they are 
ambiguous, being of this nature : that till the event 
his prophecies are not recognized as such. Where- 
fore, to augur anything from his prophecies is as if 
one had to find one's way through the mists of a 
clouded sky. I should have placed more faith in 
the prophecies of this man had he foretold with 
certainty the purely contingent. That method of 
proceeding is but darkness. Quite otherwise does 
it stand with John the Evangelist in the Apoca- 
lypse, a book which the Church has received 
as divinely inspired, and in such a matter the 
Church cannot err. Merlin it merely permits to be 
read." t 

Merlin was surely taken seriously when he was 
brought into comparison with St. John. But per- 
haps the most interesting of Major's comments on 
prophets is that which forms an immediate pre- 
lude to his account of Wallace. He there repeats 
from the Scottish chronicles a familiar prophecy of 
Thomas of Erceldoune (" hoc est Thomas Rhyth- 



THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 153 

mificator ") long before delivered in the castle 
of Dunbar, adding the following comment: " Our 
writers assure us that Thomas often foretold this 
thing and the other, and the common people 
throughout Britain give no little credence to such 
stories, which for the most part — and indeed they 
merit nothing else — I smile at. For that such per- 
sons foretold things purely contingent before they 
came to pass I cannot admit; and if only they use a 
sufficient obscurity of language, the uninstructed 
vulgar will twist a meaning out of it somehow in 
the direction that best pleases them." * 

The important feature of this remark is its attest 
that the prophecies of Thomas and " such persons " 
were given no little credence by the common people 
throughout Britain and readily accepted by the 
uninstructed vulgar. Any one, then, who desired 
to influence the people at large might naturally 
employ their belief in such stories for his own ends. 
But belief in prophecies was not confined to com- 
mon folk. It held in the highest circles. King James 
I was a reader of prophecies, and it was known 
that in 1437 his murder was predicted by a woman 
soothsayer from Ireland. Buchanan says that 
James III was greatly addicted to certain witches, 
and one of their prophecies, it is alleged, aroused 
his enmity against the Earl of Mar, which caused 
the latter's tragic death in 1479. f 



154 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 

That the author of the Wallace was interested in 
prophecy, and determined to draw what advantage 
he could from it, is evident from his open appeal 
to Thomas Rhymer. He, of course, knew of the 
reliance placed in Thomas by Scottish chroniclers 
like Wyntoun,* Gray, and Bower. But he was 
doubtless stimulated most by the example of Bar- 
bour's Bruce, which his own poem was intended to 
offset, if not to counterblast.! Early in his work,J 
Barbour quoted Thomas's prophecy that Bruce 
should be king " and haiff this land [Scotland] all 
in leding." The author of the Wallace, however, 
goes him one better, and makes English prophets 
as well as Thomas vaticinate about his hero. Near 
the beginning of his poem we read: § 

Als Inglis clerks in prophecys thai fand 
How a Wallace suld putt thaim of Scotland. 

It is more important that he represents Thomas as 
actually staying with the minister at Faile when 
news of Wallace's death is brought there. Thomas 
at once denies the report, and when he hears that 
Wallace still lives, he makes his prophecy : 

Than Thomas said: " Forsuth, or he decess, 
Mony thousand in feild sail mak thar end. 
Off this regioune he sail the Sothroun send ; 
And Scotland thris he sail bryng to the pess." 1 1 

This, indeed, is a line of structure in the poem. The 
author proceeds formally to show how Thomas's 



THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 155 

prophecy, elsewhere unheard-of, was verified by 
events. He develops his story by personal devices, 
adapting history at pleasure, to show how Scotland 
was thrice brought to peace by Wallace's exploits. 
** Thus Wallace thrys has maid all Scotland fre " * 
— a fine fiction ! 

The author of the Wallace lined himself up with 
those who were glad to make one or other of the 
goodly fellowship of prophets a mouthpiece of 
their own thoughts. He took as the burden-bearer 
of his new message a mythical personage of the 
same character as Thomas Rhymer, Merlin, Os- 
sian, and others less well known, all of whom were 
reputed to have been in the otherworld; and he 
thus subtly justified the startling statements of 
his book by an implicit appeal to supernatural au- 
thority.! 

We are now ready for the interesting question: 
Does the attribution of the Wallace to such a per- 
son as Blind Harry, son of Gow mac Morn, and 
great grandson of Finn mac Cowl, reveal anything 
with regard to the tone of the work ? 

In the Book of the Dean of Lismore, gathered in 
Scotland about the author's time, is a poem often 
called Ossian's Prayer. Here, in response to the 
bard's inquiry, St. Patrick declares that the Fe- 
nians are not in Heaven and he cannot secure them 
entrance there. Whereupon Ossian, a " mourn- 



156 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 

ful, poor old man," breaks out in savage condem- 
nation of the Christian faith. 

Better the fierce conflict of Finn and his Feinn 
Than thy holy master, and thyself together. 

And he is not convinced by the Saint's rebukes: 

Ossian, Prince's son, 't will be thy soul's great loss. 
That thou now think'st only of the battles of the Feinn. 

In another poem in the same book, Ossian thus 
exults at the deeds of the old warriors: 

It was on Fintray's strand, down at the sea. 

Our people made this slaughter. 

Of these, the kings of all the world. 

And drank our full of vengeance. 

Our fierce and conquering arms 

Laid many a noble warrior low; 

Many a sword and sliield 

Lay shattered on the strand. 

The strand of Fin tray of the port; 

Many dead bodies lay upon the earth, 

Many a hero with a vacant grin. 

Much was the sport we gathered in the fight. 

Perhaps the best embodiment of this Fenian 
spirit is found in the elaborate Dialogue of Oisin 
and Patrick, where Oisin laments his departed 
fellows : 

O Patrick, sad is the tale. 
To be after the heroes, thus feeble; 
Listening to clerics and to bells. 
Whilst I am a poor blind old man.* 



THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 157 

The Saint rebukes him earnestly: 

Thou art old, withered, and hoary, 
Thy understandmg is gone, and mirth; 
Leave oflf thy vehement talk. 
And thy bed shall be in heaven beyond. 

Thou art piteous and devoid of sense. 
That is worse for thee than being blind; 
If thou didst get thy sight within, 
Great would be thy attachment to heaven beyond. 

But Oisin fervently persists in his praise of the old 
** mighty men " (among them Gow mac Morn) 
who were " not slow in making slaughter." There 
was no hero in heaven or hell the equal of Finn: 
he surpassed St. Patrick's Lord. 

'T was not in forming fields and grass. 
That my king took delight; 
But in mangling the bodies of heroes, 
In contesting kingdoms and spreading his fame. 

Many a battle, victory and contest. 
Was celebrated by the Fians of Fail; 
I never heard that any feat was performed 
By the king of Saints; or that he reddened his hand. 

Oisin said, sorrowful is my tale! 

The sound of thy hps is not sweet to me; 

I will cry my fill, but not for God, 

But for Fiorm and the Fians not being alive! 

Again we are reminded of Billie Blin, " the mali- 
cious personage " whom Professor Child has iden- 



158 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 

tified with "Blind the Bad," "the Carl Blind, 
surnamed Bavis," " Old Carl Hood," who " comes 
for ill, but never for good." " Odin," says Professor 
Child, " though not a thoroughly malignant di- 
vinity, had his dark side, and one of his titles in 
Saemund's Edda is Bolverkr, maleficus. He first 
caused war by casting his spear among men, and 
Dag, after he has killed Helgi, says Odin was the 
author of all the mischief, for he brought strife 
among kinsmen." * 

Saxo Grammaticus f tells of a certain blind man 
Bolwis " who was bribed to bring the sons of Sigar 
and the sons of Hamund to turn their friendship 
into hatred." " King Sigar," we read, " had been 
used to transact almost all affairs by the advice of 
two old men, one of whom was Bolwis. The temper 
of these two men was so different that one used to 
reconcile folk who were at feud, while the other 
loved to sunder in hatred those who were bound 
by friendship, and by estranging folk to fan pesti- 
lent quarrels." 

" So Bolwis began by reviling the sons of Ha- 
mund to the sons of Sigar, in lying slanders, de- 
claring that they never used to preserve the bonds 
of fellowship loyally, and that they must be re- 
strained by war rather than by league." 

Bilwis and Bolwis are akin to the two brothers 
of Welsh myth Nissyen and Evnissyen, as set 



THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 159 

forth in the Mabinogi of Branwen. Nissyen was a 
lover of peace and would always " cause his family 
to be friends when their wrath was at the highest," 
but Evnissyen *' would cause strife between his 
two brothers when they were most at peace." In 
Layamon's Brut* Merlin, counselor of Arthur, 
says of himself that his mind is bale- wise ("mi 
gsest is bseliwis ") and that he is not disposed to 
gladness, mirth, or good words. 

Here we have the key to the tone of the Wallace : 
it is the tone of the Fenians, of Odin, of Evnissyen, 
and Merlin the bale-wise. The opening words of 
the author are an appeal to his countrymen to re- 
member their ancestors and oppose their " aid 
ennemys cummyn of Saxony s blud," and presently 
we learn, what the rest of the book abundantly 
proves, that his hero's " haile mynde, labour and 
besynes, was set in war." f 

It was his lyflF, and maist part of his fude, 

To see thaim sched the byrnand Sothroun blude. 

The Wallace, indeed, is bale-wise from beginning 
to end, a perfect welter of slaughter and revenge. 
" Be ready for revenge " was the author's most 
urgent appeal to his countrymen — the fundamen- 
tal teaching of his book. 

Yhe nobill men, that ar off Scottis kind, 
Thar peteous dede yhe kepe in to your mynd; 
And ws rawenge, quhar we are set in thrang.^ 



160 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 

His prime object was to fan a pestilent quarrel, and 
lie could have chosen no person more suitable to be 
the mouthpiece of his violent hate than a bard of 
Fenian blood, one of the race of Ossian, and akin 
to Billie Blin, alias Odin, balewise, baleworker, 
sower of enmities, " who first brought strife among 
kinsmen." 

The ferocity of the Wallace constituted no doubt 
a chief element of its early appeal, and unques- 
tionably helped to establish the prejudice which 
for centuries kept interest in the poem keen. Now 
that that prejudice has passed, now that more 
gentle sentiments prevail everywhere among the 
Scots, their historians are more and more prone to 
slight Blind Harry's work, and to minimize its 
value — because they dislike its tone. But much 
too readily do they explain its faults as due to the 
fact that the author was an ignorant blind old 
minstrel, " the oracle of the unlettered crowd," 
" bitter as a man of limited knowledge, circum- 
scribed by his blindness and the spirit of his time," 
would naturally be, his temper " on a level with 
the temper of the common people of his time, 
from whom he sprang." * The Wallace we have 
outgrown, let us hope, because its tone is out- 
rageously pagan. The poet's non-Christian im- 
pulses are in accord with those of the so-called 
" wild Scots " of whom Major tells so much, the 



THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 161 

Gaels, who perpetuated Ossian's contempt for 
apostles of mercy and peace.* 

Were the Sons of Morn alive. 
The priestly order soon must quit; 
You would find yourselves cut up, 
Ye men of the spotted crooks. 

Were the Sons of black Garry alive, 
Or Caoilte, who was ever so brave. 
Neither the sounds of bells or priests 
Would now be heard in Rath Cruachan.f 

Contemplating Blind Harry, whoever he was 
who for good reason chose that alias, our thoughts 
turn naturally to that excellent writer who more 
than any other in Scotland in our time was fired 
by Gaelic flame. William Sharp wrote under the 
pseudonym Fiona Macleod, a name which " flashed 
ready made " into his mind, because he wished in 
disguise to mirror a side of his nature which he 
could not bring himself to expose openly. " Some- 
times," he wrote in 1893, " I am tempted to be- 
lieve I am half a woman, and so far saved as I am 
by the hazard of chance from what a woman can 
be made to suffer if one let the light of the com- 
mon day illuminate the avenues and vistas of her 
heart. J " He used the woman's name Fiona Mac- 
leod because the works in which he first used it 
" grew out of the subjective or feminine side of his 
nature." His friend Grant Allen at once recog- 



16^ THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 

nized in Pharais " that shadowy Ossianic spirit, as 
of your misty straits and your floating islands." 
" It is instinct," he wrote, " with the dreamy 
Celtic genius, and seems to come to us straight 
from the Isles of the Dead." 

This was true. But the Celtic Muse had different 
tones, as Fiona Macleod was well aware. Hear 
what she wrote to the same critic after his review 
of Pharais : 

" What you say about the survival of folklore as 
a living heritage is absolutely true — how true per- 
haps few know, except those who have lived among 
the Gaels, of their blood, and speaking the ancient 
language. The Celtic paganism lies profound and 
potent still beneath the fugitive drift of Christian- 
ity and Civilisation, as the deep sea beneath the 
coming and going of the tides. No one can under- 
stand the islander and remote Alban Gael who 
ignores or is oblivious of the potent pagan and in- 
deed elementally barbaric forces behind all ex- 
terior appearances." * What, we may ask, led Wil- 
liam Sharp to publish The Pagan Review ? 

The mythical Blind Harry came from faery and 
was no Christian, and if the poet into whose mind 
that pseudonym sprang, as suitable for the ex- 
pression of his pagan side, never felt sorrow for his 
exhibition of ire, then one may well fear that for 
centuries Mahoun has been leading him a merry 



THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 163 

dance " amangis the feyndis fell." His fellow 

maker Dunbar had a glimpse of Hell and there 

discovered wild Scots galore, with one MacFadden 

at their head, chattering Gaelic and dancing a 

Highland fling. 

Than cryd Mahoun for a Heleand pad3ane; 

Syne ran a feynd to feche Makfad3ane, 

Ffar northwart in a nuke; 

Be lie the correnoch had done schout, 

Erschemen so gadderit him abowt 

In Hell grit rowme thay tuke. 

Thae tarmegantis, with tag and tatter, 
Ffull lowd in Ersche begowth to clatter, 
And rowp [croaked] lyk revin and ruke: 
The Devill sa devit wes with thair 3ell, 
That in the depest pot of hell. 
He smorit thame with smvke.* 

The Gaelic element in Dunbar's inspiration, and 
indeed in that of all the independent Scottish poets 
of mediaeval times, has never been properly de- 
fined. That inquiry remains yet to be made. But 
Gaelic inheritance surely forms part of that much- 
discussed quality " Scotticism," the old perfervi- 
dum ingenium Scotorum, which is something more 
than simple love of country, amor Scotiae, as some 
would have it, and has little to do with rank. The 
writer of the article on Harry the Minstrel in the 
latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica was 
possibly justified in speaking of the Wallace as 



164 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 

" the earliest outstanding work which discloses that 
habit of Scotticism which took such strong hold of 
the popular Northern literature during the coming 
years of conflict with England. In this respect it 
is in marked contrast with all the patriotic verse 
of preceding and contemporary literature." But he 
was unwise to add: " This attitude of the Wallace 
may perhaps be accepted as corroborative evi- 
dence of the humble milieu and popular sentiment 
of its author." On the contrary, this attitude 
merely evidenced the general " savage vitality " 
of Scotland, much of which, as Professor David 
Masson maintained, " yet remains to be articu- 
lated in civilized books." * 

" One does not like to say severe things about a 
poor old wandering minstrel," writes Professor 
Minto-t " Like many other bygones that were in- 
teresting to bygones, he and his heroic verse, once 
an acceptable arrival at many a lively feast and 
proud residence, would be considered a terrible 
visitation in modern society. Blind Harry has not 
the elements of perennial interest. Only strong 
patriotism could have composed, and only strong 
patriotism could have listened to, his strains." 

We may well admit that the writer as well as the 
readers of the Wallace were strong patriots. But let 
us not deceive ourselves. If we must say severe 
things about certain aspects of the poem, it is not 



THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 165 

because it is the work of a poor blind wandering 
minstrel, or even because the events it records are 
now deemed in large part fictitious. We must no 
longer confuse our literary with our moral ap- 
preciation of the book's worth. Scots, in truth, dis- 
like Blind Harry nowadays for the very reason that 
their ancestors formerly liked him, and Barbour, 
offering so great a contrast in personality, being so 
much less violent and bloodthirsty, so much more 
generous and kindly, is applauded instead. It is not, 
therefore, as Dr. Craigie has ironically suggested,* 
because " fact must be more poetic than fiction," 
that Barbour is more praised, but because chivalry 
appeals to us more than cruelty, and gentleness 
more than lust for revenge. Mr. Craigie did a serv- 
ice in calling attention to the high literary quality 
of parts of the Wallace, but its general tone, he 
would have done well to emphasize, is abominable. 
The poet's art is that of an admiring disciple of 
Chaucer, and deserved proper applause as such; 
but his sentiments would have made Chaucer 
wince. 

In fairness, however, it should be said that vitu- 
peration was not confined to the North. Such 
Englishmen as Skelton, sometimes very foul- 
mouthed, delighted in abuse of " the rude rank 
Scots " — Scots of the Out Isles. After the battle 
of Flodden, Skelton composed a poem: 



166 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 

Agaynst the proude Scottes clatteryinge, 
That never wyl leave theyr tratlynge, 

in which we read: 

Are not these Scots 
Fools and sots 
Such boast to make, 
To prate and crake, 
To face, to brace. 
All void of grace ? 
So proud of heart. 
So overthwart. 
So out of frame, 
So void of shame. 
As it is enrolled, 
Written, and told. 
Within this quaire ? 

Only a few years later Major wrote: " I have 
read in histories written by Englishmen that the 
Scots are the worst of traitors, and that this stain 
is with them inborn. . . . The Scots, on the 
other hand, call the English the chief of traitors, 
and, denying that their weapon is a brave man's 
sword, affirm that all their victories are won by 
guile and craft. I, however, am not wont to credit 
the common Scot in his vituperation of the English 
nor yet the Englishman in his vituperation of the 
Scot. ... In the matter of prejudices that have 
their root in hatred, bear this in mind: that two 
neighboring kingdoms, striving for the mastery, 
never cherish a sincere desire for peace." * 



THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 167 

And later he reverts to the same topic: " It is not 
of yesterday that I have observed how it is the 
custom of the vulgar Scot to say nasty things about 
the English, and contrariwise. Love and hatred 
have this in common: that alike they tend to be- 
cloud and blind our intelligent judgment of things, 
and give an erroneous and even perverse interpre- 
tation of actions the most excellent, when these 
are the work of the other side. Now it behoves 
every man, and most of all a priest, to rid himself 
of this pestilent habit, and to weigh in equal scales 
whatever comes before him before judgment. 
Otherwise such an one is unworthy of confidence."* 

It was a Scot, Wyntoun, who, before the Wal- 
lace-poet's day, thus counselled his countrymen: 

Set [though] we haiff nane affectioune 

Off caus till Ynglis natioune, 

Yeit it ware baith syn and schame 

Meir than thai [de]serve, thaim to defame.f 

Major, not the Wallace-poet, followed Wyntoun's 
advice — to his honor ! 

The only spirit that quickens one in the Wallace 
is the spirit of patriotism; but so malignant is that 
spirit, so stimulating to cruelty and barbarity, that 
it seems like the spirit not of God but of the Devil. 
The spirit of hate animates the Wallace through- 
out, and no power on earth can cast it out, so as to 
make its body wholly clean, 



168 THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 

The best in the Wallace was set forth by Henry 
Charteris in the prologue to his edition of 1570,* 
where he defends himself against some one's accu- 
sation that by publishing the poem he was stirring 
men to the remembrance of old injuries rather than 
to the desire of peace: " God (who is the searcher 
of men's hearts) does know how far that is from 
my mind. Although that in the days of Wallace, 
England did vehemently oppress this realm, where- 
through most justly he did oppose himseK to them, 
yet I esteem it a thing not impossible but that old 
enemies may become new and perfect friends, and 
again old friends become new and plain enemies, 
as it befell betwixt the Scots and Picts. Yet I mean 
nothing less than to stir up the hearts of any men 
against any nation, realm or country. My intent 
and chief scope is this in general, to move all men 
(after the example of Wallace) to the defence of 
their native realm, and commonwealth, to hazard 
whatsoever they have in this earth, for the main- 
tenance thereof against any nation, French or 
English, Spanish, or others whatsoever, that would 
invade the same. And also that the valiant acts 
and deeds of such as have spent and given their 
travails and their lives therefor should never come 
into oblivion, but remain in fresh and recent mem- 
ory to the perpetual glory of their name and fame, 
during all ages and posterities unto the world's 
end." 



THE PURPOSE AND SPIRIT 169 

Charteris' " intent and chief scope " deserves 
commendation and we can only wish that he had 
had a finer instrument to work with. Caxton had 
considerable difficulty in defending the Morte 
Darthur against such as thought it a false narrative 
of vain slaughter and bold bawdry, and he had to 
resort to the advice: " Do after the good and leave 
the evil, and it shall bring you to good fame and 
renown." But Caxton had much the easier task, 
for few, we fancy, have ever found his Book of 
Arthur other than an incentive to noble deeds. In 
it what linger longest in our memories — and how 
long they do linger! — are the numerous "renowned 
acts of humanity, gentleness, and chivalry." 



CHAPTER IX 

Master Blair 

And of his song nought only the sentence, 

As writ myn autour called LoUius, 

But pleynly, save our tonges difference, 

I dar wel seyn in al that Troilus 

Seyde in his song, lo ! every word right thus 

As I shal seyn. 

Chaucer 

AFTER the poet's blindness, the most vexed 
^ question in connection with the Wallace con- 
cerns a " Latin book " by " Master Blair," which 
the poet explicitly mentions as his principal au- 
thority, — one, he claims, superior to all others 
regarding Wallace, yet unknown to any one else.* 

Off Wallace lyff quha has a forthar feill 
May schaw furth mair with wit and eloquence; 
For I to this haiff don my diligence, 
Eftyr the pruff geyffyn fra the Latyn buk, 
Quhilk Maister Blayr in his tym wndyrtuk. 
In fayr Latyn compild it till ane end. 

This Master Blair, according to the poet, was : 

A worthy clerk bath wys and rycht sawage.f 
Lewyt he was befor in Parys toune, 
Amang maistris in science and renoune. 
Wallace and he at hay me in scule had beyne; 
Sone eftirwart, as verite is seyne. 
179 



MASTER BLAIR 171 

He was the man that pryncipall wndirtuk, 
That fyrst compild in dyt the Latyne buk 
Oflf Wallace lyff, rycht famous of renoun; 
And Thomas Gray persone oflf Liber tomie.* 
With him thai war, and put in story all, 
OflFt ane or bath, mekill of his truaill. 

Eftir Wallace thai lestit mony day, 

Thir twa knew best off gud Schir Wil3hamys deid.f 

Master Blair, " in his priest's weed," is once sent 
by Wallace to warn the west, and he figures 
further as a companion of the mysterious Jop, 
whose name before he was rechristened by the 
Scots was Grimsby. f He is pictured as writing in 
his book the absurd account of Wallace's appear- 
ance and attitudes, which was curiously made up by 
the author, in part from the description of char- 
acters in the Knight's Tale.§ Blair is also made to 
participate in the fantastic sea-struggle with John 
of Lynn, in which he is described as a doughty 
bowman, who himself cast the chief brigand's re- 
mains overboard; but in this last case, since it 
would not do for him to exalt himself in his own 
book, his exploits are said to have been recorded 
by his friend Gray, who was their " steerman " for 
the nonce. 1 1 

Until recently, nearly all historians and critics 
accepted the worthy French clerk. Master Blair, as 
an actual person, and merely speculated as to what 



17^ MASTER BLAIR 

Blind Harry owed to him,* whether he was re- 
sponsible for the descriptions of nature in the 
poem,t or for the variations from other chroniclers 
that it exhibits, and so on. On the ground of his 
statement that he used a Latin book, it has some- 
times been argued that the author was not a min- 
strel, or that he was an ecclesiastic, as well as that 
he was not blind from birth.| 

But of late Master Blair has begun to play a dif- 
ferent role. It is probably true, as Dr. Ross wrote, § 
that *' no human being possessing the faculty of 
reason could now be got to believe that any con- 
temporary of the illustrious patriot could by any 
possibility have penned such a biography as Blind 
Harry gives us." Therefore, those who believe in 
Blair must apologize for Blind Harry. Mr. Hen- 
derson, who holds that the poet was always blind, 
maintains that he merely carried on the tradition 
of a Latin book from some earlier " bard," em- 
phasizing that " so far from affirming that he had 
either seen or read the aforesaid book, Harry does 
not even affirm that it then existed; and if he does 
not actually imply that it no longer existed, he 
refrains from stating where, or from whom, he had 
access to it." |1 On the other hand. Dr. Moir, who 
holds that Harry was not born blind, believes that 
his mistakes might have been due to the fact that 
he grew more and more " rhapsodical " in old age, 



MASTER BLAIR 173 

and forgot " the true historical sequence of his 
tale." " Starting from his Latin original in the 
days of his youth, when perhaps he to some extent 
could read the original, he would gradually forget 
the exact facts of history as given by Blair and 
Gray, and give his enthralled and prejudiced audi- 
ence something which he honestly believed was 
true, but which he could no longer from blindness 
verify or check. ... I must say that Harry's al- 
lusions to his ' autor ' are made in so guileless a 
way, that I do not consider him to be a wilful im- 
postor. I think there had been some such book, but 
that, as I said above, Harry, carried away by 
rhapsodical fervour, gradually departed from his 
original. ... If Blair wrote a Latin Book on Wal- 
lace, probably but one or two copies of it ever ex- 
isted, and it is no wonder if these were lost at the 
Reformation, if not before." * 

Though belief in Blair's book thus remains, the 
present trend of opinion is to regard it as a fic- 
titious authority, f "an apocryphal work os- 
tentatiously cited by the poet, which criticism 
ought to combat." J So far the best arguments in 
favor of this view have been advanced by Mr. 
Brown. § " To none of the critics," he says, " does 
it seem to have occurred that the poet's statements 
may be quite otherwise interpreted by comparing 
them with similar passages in other early works. 



174 MASTER BLAIR 

They seem to have forgotten that early authors in 
order to give their works the stamp of authority, 
very frequently, as Dunlop remarks, ' feigned that 
their fables had been translated from Latin, or 
derived from ancient French prose, in which they 
had been originally written, — averments which 
should never be accepted unless otherwise estab- 
lished to be true.' . . . The putting forth of works 
under a false name was not in early times associ- 
ated with any sense of literary dishonesty. The 
practice arose from a desire on the part of authors 
to fortify themselves by alleging authority for 
their statements." 

Mr. Brown cites among other less pertinent ex- 
amples that of Chaucer's giving credit to " myn 
auctour called Lollius," instead of to Boccaccio, 
for the chief matter of the Troilus. The case of 
Lollius has very recently been discussed in most 
illuminating fashion by Professor Kittredge, who 
puts the situation as follows : * 

" When Chaucer came to write this novel 
[Troilus], he wished — as all writers of fiction did, 
and do still — to lend his work an air of truth and 
authenticity. A ready and familiar device was, and 
still is, to appeal to some source that might be ac- 
cepted as authoritative. Benoit and Boccaccio 
would not answer, for the conditions of the prob- 
lem required an ancient (or at least an antique) 



MASTER BLAIR 175 

personage, and preferably one who had written in 
a learned language. Homer was manifestly out of 
the question. Dares, Dictys, and Geoffrey were 
likewise unavailable, for their works were current, 
and notoriously did not contain any such story as 
that which Chaucer meant to tell. Guido's name 
might perhaps have been used at a pinch; but he 
also was well-known and current, and except at a 
pinch indeed, his dry, compendious, and unsym- 
pathetic account of the love affair could not be 
cited as the source of Chaucer's warm and de- 
tailed narrative. For it was not only facts that 
Chaucer wished to ascribe to his audor, but feel- 
ings, since he himself, so he tells us, is an outsider 
in matters of love: * 

Of no sentement I this endite, 
But out of Latin in my tonge it write. 

And, in fact, there was no pinch at all. For Lollius 
was at hand, a venerable and veritable Latin name, 
and his vanished history, just because it had van- 
ished, was precisely the stalking-horse that the 
fiction needed. Hence as a part of that fiction, 
Chaucer credited his material en bloc to Lollius, 
and proposed with a light heart, to be merely a 
translator from the Latin." 

" Lollius, then, in Chaucer's fiction, is not Boc- 
caccio or Benoit or Guido or Statins or Ovid or 



176 MASTER BLAIR 

Boethius: he is simply Lollius, an alleged Latin 
author on the Trojan War, to whom Chaucer 
chooses, for his artistic purposes, to credit practi- 
cally every thing that the Troilus contains — every- 
thing, that is, that Chaucer drew from Boccaccio 
and Benoit and Guido and Statins and Ovid and 
Boethius, and likewise everything that he drew 
from the brain of Geoffrey Chaucer. In other 
words, Chaucer's pretended use of Lollius is not 
an acknowledgment of obligations to Boccaccio 
or to anybody else: it is a fiction, deliberately 
adopted in advance, impressed upon the reader 
with all the emphasis of which the poet is capable, 
and fostered and supported by repeated assertion 
and skilful innuendo." 

Blind Harry acted like his master Chaucer. He 
gathered material for his narrative from written 
documents of various sorts, as well as from oral 
traditions connected or not with Wallace. Into the 
question of these his sources, however, I have now 
no desire to enter. I should like simply to indicate 
the person who seems to have led him, as a means 
of covering his tracks, to cite the authority of 
Master Blair. Again the road leads to the prophets. 
The worthy French clerk. Master Blair, fictitious 
recorder of the deeds of Wallace, seems to be merely 
an echo of the worthy French clerk. Master Blaise, 
fictitious recorder of the deeds of Merlin. 



MASTER BLAIR 177 

Of this Blaise we read in Malory's Morte 
d' Arthur: " Then Merlin took his leave of Arthur 
and of the two kings, for to go and see his master 
Bleyse that dwelt in Northumberland, and so he 
departed and came to his master, that was passing 
glad of his coming. And there he told how Arthur 
and the two kings had sped at the great battle and 
how it was ended, and told the names of every 
king and knight of worship that was there. And so 
Bleyse wrote the battle, word by word, as Merlin 
told him, how it began, and by whom, and in like- 
wise how it was ended, and who had the worse. All 
the battles that were done in Arthur's days Merlin 
had his Master Bleyse do write." * 

This is the only place where Malory refers to 
Master Blaise, but he is repeatedly mentioned 
in Arthurian story, and in the Roman de Merlin 
he is never lost sight of. After the beginning, when 
he is identified with the chaplain-confessor of 
Merlin's mother, he takes little part in the action, 
save as the constant recipient of Merlin's intimate 
accounts of the conduct of affairs in Britain, The 
romance- writer tells us that " cil Blayses estoit 
moult boins clers & soutis," and that it was at 
Merlin's request he undertook to compile a book 
of all the " aventures " of the land in their days. 
Merlin bade him procure ink and parchment and 
promised to convey him matter which he could get 



178 MASTER BLAIR 

from no one else. He would often come to him, he 
said, and tell him all he needed for his great work, 
which would be more praised than any other 
" uie de royaus ne de sages," bringing him in this 
life " acomplicement de cuer " (happy Blaise!) and 
in the life to come joy everlasting. " Biaus Maistres 
Blaises " dwelt in Northumberland and there the 
national leader (for so he practically was — " li 
maistres conseillers le roy Artu ") came over and 
over again to sojourn with him, and to discuss 
events of the present and future. The "preu- 
dome " Blaise always welcomed Merlin, his "biaus 
dous amis," with great joy, " car moult lauoit 
desire a ueoir & il lui." * 

" Lors li dist Merlins toutes les choses que li 
estoient auenues puis quil sen parti de lui & li con- 
toit comment li Sesne estoient entre en la terre as 
barons & comment il les guerroient. Et Blaise mist 
tout che en escrit & par lui le sauons nous encore." f 
Such statements about Blaise and his book almost 
always include the formula " par lui (li, lequel) 
nous le savons encore," the purpose of the author 
of the Roman being, exactly like that of the author 
of the Wallace with respect to his narrative, to 
establish the impression that the history of Britain 
in Arthur's days depended solely on the records of 
Master Blaise, these being taken down " mot a 
mot " from Merlin himself.| 



MASTER BLAIR 179 

The picture of Master Blaise taking down the 
sole authoritative narrative of Merlin's deeds from 
his own lips evidently appealed to the illuminators 
of the Middle Ages, for there are several miniatures 
in the manuscript subscribed : " Ensi que Merlins 
fait escrire .j. liure plain de merueilles a Blase sen 
clerc," * and the like. One had only to thumb the 
pages of the romance to have the situation fixed 
in one's mind. 

Furthermore, " Blase's books " were mentioned 
by chroniclers. Robert of Brunne, in a passage con- 
cerning Merlin in his Story of England^ remarks: 

Penne seyde Merlyn many thynges. 
What y ]>\s lond schuld tide of kynges, 
pat are in Blase bokes write, — 
pey I^at hauyt, mowe hit wyte, — 
And in Tolomer & sire Amytayn; 
Pyse hadde Merlynes bokes playn, 
flFor l?yse Jjre write his prophecyes. 
And were his maistres in ser partyes.f 

What Merlin said about happenings to British 
kings was written in a Latin book by Master Blase. 
*' They that have it, may it wit! " What Thomas 
Rhymer said about Wallace and the British kings 
of his days was written in a Latin book by Master 
Blare. " They that have it, may it wit! " 

Whether mediaeval readers took Master Blaise 
seriously or not, we cannot say for certain. No 
modern scholar, at any rate, has regarded him 



180 MASTER BLAIR 

otherwise than as an imaginary figure.* He is too 
strikingly parallel a person to Master Blair to per- 
mit us to believe that the Wallace-poet was not 
thinking of him when he invented his own recon- 
dite authority. Blaise (Blase), to be sure, is not 
absolutely identical with Blair (Blare). f The two 
names dififer by the difference of an s and an r; but 
that is of small account. Accepting the idea of 
Master Blaise, it would have been as natural as 
judicious for the poet to make this name of Wal- 
lace's supposed chaplain more Scottish in appear- 
ance,! and the form Blair would inevitably occur 
to him at once. But why John Blair .'* A fact cited 
by Mr. Brown § provides us with an easy explana- 
tion. One " Magister John Blare " was a king's 
chaplain at the Scottish court in Blind Harry's 
time, and (in 1467) was given a robe by royal au- 
thority " pro scriptura unius lihri dicti Mandevile.'* 
This is a precious bit of information. The Wallace- 
poet had evidently read the voyages of Sir John 
Mandevile before he wrote his own envoy, in 
which he asserts that he had done his " diligence," 

Eftyr the pruff geyffyn fra the Latyn buk 
Quhilk Maister Blayr in his tym wndertuk 
In fayr Latyn compild it till ane end. 

For he continues, in words that point directly to 
Mandevile's final paragraph: 



MASTER BLAIR 181 

With thir witnes the mar is to commend. 
Byshop Synclar than lord was off Dunkell, 
He gat this buk, and confermd it him sell 
For werray trew; thar off he had no dreid, 
Himselff had seyn gret part off Wallace deid. 
His purpos was for till haue send it to Rom, 
Our fadyr off kyrk tharon to gyff his dom. 

Sir John Mandevile (or rather Jean de Bour- 
gogne, dit a la harbe; for he, like the author of the 
Wallace, wrote under an assumed name) tells us 
similarly in his closing words what he did to pro- 
mote belief in his fabulous book when once it was 
" compyled." * 

*' For as much," he says, " as many men beleve 
not that they see with theyr eyen or that they may 
conceive and know in their mynde, therefore I 
made my way to Rome in my coming homewarde 
to shew my boke to the holy father the Pope and 
tell hym of the mervayles that I had sene in diverse 
countreys; so that he with his wise counsel wold 
examine it, with diverse folke that are at Rome, 
for there dwell men of all nations of the world, and 
a lytle time after when he and his counsel had ex- 
amined it all through, he sayde to me for a certayne 
that it was true, for he sayd he had a hoke of Latyn 
contayning all that and much more, of the which 
Mappa Mundi is made, the which boke I saw, and 
therefore the Pope hath ratyfied and confirmed my 
boke in all poyntes." 



182 MASTER BLAIR 

It is curious to find the author of the Wallace 
thus following the lead of Mandevile, for his own 
book is to be placed in the same category of narra- 
tive imposture, covered with a thin veil of pre- 
tension to recondite authority. GeofiFrey of Mon- 
mouth's History and Sir John Mandevile's Voyages 
were apparently books of a kind that a man of his 
temperament would desire to have " at his beddes 
heed." His taste was not singular. No narrators of 
the Middle Ages compared in vogue with these 
two writers of fiction. He and they together form 
an incomparable trio. By no others, perhaps, have 
readers ever been more willingly led away from the 
strait and narrow path of fact. We may well doff 
our hats to these men's power of imagination. But 
perhaps it would be just as well in a future edition 
of the Dictionary of National Biography to remove 
altogether the curious account of Master Blair there 
given, as far from truth perhaps as the Wallace 
itself, but set down with no intent to deceive. 

Master Blaise, in his turn, one may conjecture, 
is no other than Master Blihis,* the mysterious au- 
thority for much Arthurian fiction, including the 
story of the Grail and its mysteries, the " famosus 
fabulator Bledhericus " of whom Giraldus Cam- 
brensis speaks, and who, under the name Breri, is 
cited by the Anglo-Norman poet Thomas as the 



MASTER BLAIR 183 

most trustworthy source of information about 

Tristram. 

Ky solt les gestes e les cuntes 
De toz les reis, de toz les cuntes 
Ej orent este en Bretaingne. 

There must have been many " masters " of the 
sort. Master Blair reminds one further of Master 
Brogan, St. Patrick's supposed scribe, who recorded 
Caeilte's wonderful tales. " ' Success and benedic- 
tion, Caeilte! ' Patrick cried, ' and where is Bro- 
gan ? be that tale written down by thee, so that to 
the chiefs of the world's latter time it prove a 
diversion.' And Brogan penned it." * 

Thanks to Master Blair and Blind Harry, Wil- 
liam Wallace has become one of the most famed of 
Scottish chiefs of the world's latter time, and the 
narrative of his exploits has proved a diversion to 
many — " recreation of spirit and mind," f such 
as St. Patrick found the tales of Caeilte. 



CHAPTER X 

The Wallace as History 

A Scotchman must be a very 
sturdy moralist who does not 
love Scotland better than truth. 

Dr. Johnson 

THE nature of the Wallace and the cause of its 
permanent influence become clearer when we 
consider the poet's method of make-believe and 
the way his work was treated by learned historians. 
In these respects the Wallace presents a striking 
parallel to Geoflfrey of Monmouth's History of the 
Kings of Britain, a book which, despite its obvious 
inventions, has been taken seriously by multitudes, 
and been gravely argued about by historians, dur- 
ing the bewilderingly long period of over seven 
hundred and fifty years since it was launched upon 
a world fain to believe. 

Immediately after his book appeared, sober his- 
torians like William of Malmesbury set down 
Geoffrey's statements as " fallacious fables " and 
" ridiculous figments." " He disguised," said Wil- 
liam of Newbury, " with the honest name of his- 
tory the fables about Arthur taken from the old 
tales of the Britons with increase of his own." 

184 



THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 185 

Giraldus Cambrensis soon after grew witty at 
GeoflFrey's expense, as appears from the following 
amusing story: 

*' A certain Meilerius, having always an extraor- 
dinary familiarity with unclean spirits, by seeing 
them, knowing them, talking with them, and call- 
ing each by his proper name, was enabled through 
their assistance to foretell future events. . . . He 
knew when any one spoke falsely in his presence, 
for he saw the devil as it were leaping and exulting 
on the tongue of the liar. If the evil spirits op- 
pressed him too much, the Gospel of St. John was 
laid on his bosom, when like birds they immediately 
vanished away. But when that book was removed, 
and the History of the Britons by Geoffrey Arthur, 
for the sake of experiment, substituted in its stead, 
they settled in far greater numbers and for a much 
longer time than usual, not only upon his entire 
body, but on the book that was placed upon it." * 

Such protests, however, were unable to stem the 
tide of popular belief in the glorious king which 
soon surged on all the intellectual shores of Europe; 
and, though they might gravely question this or 
that feature of Geoffrey's account, most mediaeval 
chroniclers calmly accepted in general his attitude 
towards Arthur, while they deemed true beyond 
cavil his narrative of the Trojan Brutus, illustrious 
head of Britain's royal line. 



186 THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 

Almost exactly at the same time that Blind 
Harry wrote, in 1485, Caxton indicated, in his 
preface to Malory's Morte d' Arthur, the kind of 
controversy that was still being carried on respect- 
ing Arthur. When certain noble gentlemen urged 
him to print a history of that monarch, prominent 
among the Nine Worthies of the world, he pointed 
out to them that " divers men hold opinion that 
there was no such Arthur, and that all such books 
as been made of him be but feigned and fables, 
because that some chronicles make of him no 
mention, nor remember him nothing, nor of his 
knights. Whereto they answered, and one in special 
said, that in him that should say or think that 
there was never such a king called Arthur, might 
well be aretted great folly and blindness. For he 
said that there were many evidences of the con- 
trary." The evidences of Arthur's existence which 
Caxton goes on to enumerate are not such as would 
convince an historian to-day, unless he longed for 
conviction, but they were strong enough to per- 
suade the printer that it was worth while to " draw 
briefly into English the noble histories of the said 
King " and leave his readers to decide what was 
true and what false. " And for to pass the time this 
book shall be pleasant to read in, but for to give 
faith and belief that all is true that is contained 
herein, ye be at your liberty." In any case, he 



THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 187 

felt, the Morte d' Arthur was a noble book of 
example. 

Caxton's attitude resembles that of Henry 
Charteris, who published the Wallace in 1570, and 
in a long preface to the Gentle Reader * thus ex- 
plained his position towards the poem: "As I do 
not be the furthsetting ... of this warke, follow- 
ing, preciselie affirme, the haill contentis thairof , to 
be of ane infallibill treuth: Swa do I na thing less 
than allow the judgement and opinioun of them, 
that rashlie, and at the first sicht, dois dampne the 
samin, or maist pairt thairof, as friuoll, and fen3eit. 
And that becaus thair is sum strange, and meruel- 
lous thingis conteinit thairin, quhilk scarcely semis 
can be creditit." Whereupon he discusses at length 
the reasonableness of certain episodes in the poem, 
particularly the story of Fawdoun's ghost, and the 
journeys to France, and gives proofs of Wallace's 
existence. 

Such hedging remained characteristic of Scottish 
critics. The Wallace has never been accepted by 
them as a fully authentic account of the hero's life, 
but nearly all have tried to credit as much of it as 
possible, wish begetting belief that Blind Harry 
was largely right. 

The tone of the long line of comments was really 
set by Major. After inveighing against Caxton for 
the " incoherencies " and " silly fabrications " of 



188 THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 

his English account of Wallace, Major assumes his 
regular academic air and rebukes " native chroni- 
clers " for their injudicious treatment of the 
theme. Blind Harry, whom he here mentions by 
name, was obviously the source of the fables he 
then repudiates, as follows: " About this William 
Wallace our chroniclers in the English tongue relate 
that he twice visited France. They tell of his hav- 
ing had a sea-fight with Thomas Longueville, a 
French pirate, and John Lyn, an Englishman, and 
of many other notable feats of his they make men- 
tion, which I reject as false; and my rejection of 
them I base, firstly, hereon, that our Latin chroni- 
clers relate nothing that he did of any mark after 
Varia Capella [Falkirk], but give us to understand 
that he then went into hiding; and, in the second 
place, I reject them inasmuch as the French his- 
tories make mention of Scots of far less renown in 
war than Wallace, and say scarce one word about 
him. I conclude, therefore, that he never visited 
France." But Major never concluded anything 
finally, and so, after much learned argument, he 
ends: "I am reluctant nevertheless to deny ab- 
solutely, on the ground of such reasons as I have 
ventured to state, that he never saw the shores of 
France " — which was very shrewd.* 

The questioning attitude of Major towards 
Blind Harry was altogether commendable, and we 



THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 189 

should praise him for it whole-heartedly were it not 
for the fact that he quietly appropriated various 
features of the chronicler's narrative otherwise un- 
substantiated, and presented the " notable deeds " 
of Wallace of renown, his appearance, prowess and 
character, so as to confirm that author's original 
narrative. 

Not long after Major, Bellenden, in his para- 
phrase of Hector Boece (1536), unable to refrain 
from adding new material about Wallace, whose 
reputation had so suddenly increased, refers such 
of his readers as desire further information to 
Blind Harry's book, but declines to say " if it has 
any strength of soothfastness or yet of verity," 
adding: " Therefore as now I lat al sic thingis be." 
Bellenden must have seen that the author's claims 
to credence amounted to little. Still, he encouraged 
the course of the fiction, as numerous other his- 
torians have done since. 

Skipping nearly three centuries, we come to one 
worthy of high respect. Patrick Eraser Tytler opens 
his life of Wallace * in a way that makes one feel 
he is to be an exception to the general rule, so well 
does he recognize the dangers attendant on the use 
of " the rhyming chronicler: " " The brilliant and 
romantic colours with which the associations of 
youthful years continue, even in later life, to invest 
the memory of Wallace, render the task undertaken 



190 THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 

by his biographer one of difficult execution and un- 
certain success. His story, as recounted by Henry 
the Minstrel, has been familiar to his countrymen 
almost from childhood; and although its marvels 
must be questioned, and often condemned, by the 
severity of maturer judgment, there lingers a secret 
disposition rather to believe what they wish to be 
true, than to investigate with calmness what they 
dread to find false." 

Yet, having once made humble confession, even 
he seems to have felt himself absolved from sin in 
indulging this secret disposition. After reading 
his splendidly sound prologue to his subject, it is 
indeed a great disappointment to find that Tytler's 
life of Wallace, like all the rest, records statements 
for which he must have known Blind Harry was 
the sole and a most doubtful authority, and per- 
petuates incidents of a purely imaginative char- 
acter, simply because they enlivened his narrative 
and were the chief means he had of making Wal- 
lace out to be, as he avows he conceived him, both 
in character and actions, "in all respects colossal."* 

There can, of course, be no objection to follow- 
ing Blind Harry's work " where corroborated by 
contemporary annals, or authentic records "; the 
difficulty rests in the nature and extent of the cor- 
roboration. If Blind Harry states facts that au- 
thentic records also state, then his poem may be 



THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 191 

held to be in so far true, but if on the basis of these 
facts he spins out a narrative otherwise unsub- 
stantiated, it cannot be argued that this developed 
narrative is necessarily also true: most of what a 
writer says about a situation may be fiction when 
the situation itself is fact. This point seems to have 
escaped all the biographers of Wallace, or they 
have thought well to ignore it, the more easily to 
satisfy their desire to paint an appealing portrait 
of a celebrated hero. Realizing, as Tytler himself 
said apologetically in concluding his story, that 
" the bulk of mankind are ever more captivated 
by what is wonderful and romantic than interested 
in truth," they have yielded to the soft induce- 
ment of popularity, and deviously accepted from 
Blind Harry features for the adornment of their 
pseudo-histories which they could not honestly 
have said were corroborated by authentic records. 
Lord Hailes certainly went far to discredit Blind 
Harry as an historical authority by exposing some 
of his " specious tales " and *' childish stories." * 
But there came an inevitable reaction from his 
heterodox attitude the moment there was a straw 
of new evidence for Blind Harry's supporters to 
cling to. Much was done to reinstate his poem 
among trustworthy documents when Joseph Ste- 
venson published his volume of Wallace Papers f 
for the Maitland Club in 1841, 



192 THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 

" Is it a fair inference," he asks, " because some 
errors are found in a poem, containing several 
thousand of lines, written by a blind and ignorant 
versifier, and in a poem, too, handed down for a 
long period by recitation, that the whole is utterly 
worthless ? The present collection of documents 
places this subject in a new and interesting posi- 
tion; for it shows us that those very particulars, 
which, from their romantic character, were sup- 
posed to be fictitious, and which contributed to 
throw discredit upon the whole production, are, 
in reality, genuine and authentic history." And 
again (apropos of a record showing that Wallace 
visited France and perhaps Rome) : "It is inter- 
esting to notice how the authentic details in this 
volume here bear out, to a great degree^ the wild 
romance of Blind Harry." * 

All we can say is : we disagree. No one questions 
that Wallace visited France. Major forgot when he 
disputed the fact that this was asserted in the 
Scotichronicon. But no document that Stevenson 
or any one else has published confirms in a small 
let alone a great degree Blind Harry's account of 
Wallace's visits to France. That is certainly noth- 
ing but " a wild romance," entirely unjustified by 
any authentic historical record. 

It is one thing to apologize for Blind Harry's in- 
accurate statements and ask all to treat his errors 



THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 193 

with lenity, like Irving, because of " his own situa- 
tion and the state of learning during that age," * or, 
like Chambers, because of " the unlettered char- 
acter of the author and the comparative humility 
of the class from whom he could chiefly derive 
his facts." t It is another to go on, knowing that it 
was the practice of the poet to make inaccurate 
statements, and eliminate only those that are 
grotesquely untrue, or to assert that if the " fun- 
damentals " of some of his stories are verified by 
" little morsels of evidence " J that have turned 
up, the stories themselves as the poet gives them 
are in any real sense worthy of belief. 

" A blind and ignorant versifier " might un- 
questioningly report reliable facts; " a poem 
handed down for a long period by recitation " 
might even more easily perpetuate reliable facts; 
but the Wallace in its present form was neither 
composed by a blind and ignorant versifier nor 
handed down for a long period by recitation. With- 
out question Blind Harry used current traditions 
respecting his hero, but his poem may in an ample 
sense be called an "invention"; the author was 
a fabulator, quite insensitive to accusations of 
untruth. 

Major did well to call attention to the unflatter- 
ing opinions of contemporary Englishmen regard- 
ing Scotland as a warning to his countrymen to 



194 THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 

advance only the truth. Robert of Brunne, follow- 
ing Pers de Langtoft, calls Wallace a " master of 
thieves," and Caxton describes him as " a rybaud 
and an harlot, comen up of nought." Major thought 
these were " silly fabrications." Perhaps they were. 
But it does no good to encourage prejudice by 
other " silly fabrications." Wallace has enough to 
commend him on the basis of veritable achieve- 
ment. 

This is not the place to examine in detail Blind 
Harry's record of events. That has already been 
admirably done by Dr. Francis Lane Childs in the 
unpublished Harvard dissertation already men- 
tioned, and I have no wish to trespass on his 
ground or anticipate his conclusions. However, I 
may say that they strongly fortify the opinion of 
recent Scottish scholars, particularly that of Mr. 
George Neilson, who asserts that " as history the 
poem is the veriest nightmare." * The Wallace is 
so plainly under suspicion throughout that it 
should never be regarded in any way as an inde- 
pendent historical source. Surely it is time to give 
over talking about its " inaccuracies," " blun- 
ders," "mistakes," "errors," and the like, because 
these words as used imply innocency of intent on 
the part of the poet. Why not do him justice by 
declining to judge his poem from the standpoint of 
the chronicler ? 



THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 195 

It is interesting to note that, not far from the 
time when Blind Harry celebrated William Wal- 
lace as the preeminent champion of the Scots in 
their wars of independence, William Tell was simi- 
larly exalted and made the ideal of Swiss patriots 
in their struggle against Austria. Melchior Russ of 
Lucerne, who began his chronicle in 1482, refers to 
an earlier ballad of " the first Confederate," and 
narrates certain of his exploits. In a short chronicle 
of about 1470, the Tell story and the atrocities of 
the tyrannical bailiffs are first found combined. 
" Der Thall," that is, the simpleton of popular 
fable, who corresponds to the Tokko of Saxo Gram- 
maticus and the William of Cloudesley of English 
ballads, was curiously transformed into an im- 
mortal champion of Swiss rights — " assertor 
patriae, vindex ultorque tyrannum." * " The gen- 
eral result [of recent investigations] has been to 
show that a mythological marksman and an impos- 
sible bailiff bearing the name of a real family [Gess- 
ler] have been joined with confused and distorted 
reminiscences of the events of 1245-47, in which 
the names of many real persons have been inserted 
and many unauthenticated acts attributed to 
them. . . . The alleged proofs of the existence of 
a real William Tell in Uri in the fourteenth century 
break down hopelessly." f 



196 THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 

Scots, no less than others, have been willing to 
profit by literary impostures, as is evident from 
Macpherson's Ossian, which called forth Dr. 
Johnson's caustic comment quoted at the head of 
this chapter,* or the ballad of Hardyknute, which 
Ritson rightly termed a " palpable and bungling 
forgery." f Of a Scottish family,^ and certainly 
acquainted with Ossian, probably also with Blind 
Harry, was an American historian who has had an 
immense influence in fashioning the fame of George 
Washington — Parson Weems. 

In 1800 the Reverend Mason L. Weems, pastor 
of a church near Mt, Vernon, Virginia, issued a 
Life of Washington, which went through over 
forty editions, and is popular still. In the second 
edition appeared for the first time the cherry-tree 
episode with which all American boys are early 
made familiar. Of Weems Mr. Sydney G. Fisher 
has excellently said: "It is in vain that the his- 
torians, the exhaustive investigators, the learned, 
and the accurate rail at him or ignore him. He is 
inimitable. He will live forever. He captured the 
American people. He was the first to catch their 
ear. He said exactly what they wanted to hear. 
He has been read a hundred times more than all 
the other historians and biographers of the Revo- 
lution put together. He fastened his methods so 
firmly upon the country that the learned historians 



THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 197 

must, in their own dull and lifeless way, conform 
as far as possible to his ideas or they will be neither 
read nor tolerated. 

" Out of the social, genial, card-playing, fox- 
hunting Washington, Weems manufactured the 
sanctimonious wooden image, the Sunday school 
lay figure, which Washington still remains for most 
of us, in spite of all the learned efforts of Owen 
Wister, Senator Lodge and Paul Leicester Ford. 
Weems was a myth-maker of the highest rank and 
skill and the greatest practical success. Of the Rev- 
olution itself he made a Homeric and Biblical com- 
bat of giants, titans and mammoths against the 
unfathomable corruption and wickedness of about 
a dozen dragons and fiends calling themselves 
King and Ministry in England." 

" Reckless in statement, indifferent to facts and 
research, his books are full of popular heroism, 
religion and morality, which you at first call trash 
and cant and then, finding it extremely entertain- 
ing, you declare with a laugh, as you lay down the 
book, what a clever rogue." * 

One comes to much the same conclusion after a 
close study of the Wallace as history. After one 
has been convinced that the author had a different 
object in writing the book from that of narrating 
real events, and that he succeeded marvellously 
in what he undertook to do — stirring the people 



198 THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 

to defence of their realm — one ceases to inveigh 
against his fabrications. The Wallace is of first im- 
portance as an historical document just because it 
perverted facts. 

Not in the mood of a parson, still less of a fero- 
cious Gael, but in that of a genial inventor, resem- 
bling Geoffrey of Monmouth, another American 
writer wrote a fabulous " History " of great influ- 
ence — Washington Irving. 

The legend of Blind Harry, who was long in 
faery, is fundamentally not unlike that of Rip van 
Winkle, who consorted with dead men in the 
mountains, and there passed twenty years which 
seemed to him but one night. Regarding his ac- 
count of Rip's adventures, Irving wrote slily in a 
preface : 

" The following tale was found among the pa- 
pers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old 
gentleman of New York, who was very curious in 
the Dutch history of the province, and the man- 
ners of the descendants from its primitive settlers. 
His historical researches, however, did not lie so 
much among books, as among men; for the former 
are lamentably scanty on his favorite topics; 
whereas he found the old burghers, and still more 
their wives, rich in that legendary lore so invalu- 
able to a true history. Whenever, therefore, he hap- 
pened upon a genuine Dutch family, snugly shut- 



THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 199 

up in its low-roofed farmliouse, under a spreading 
sycamore, he looked upon it as a little clasped vol- 
ume of black letter, and studied it with the zeal of 
a bookworm. 

" The result of all these researches was a history 
of the province, during the reign of the Dutch gov- 
ernors, which he published some years since. There 
have been various opinions as to the literary 
character of his work, and, to tell the truth, it is 
not a whit better than it should be. Its chief merit 
is its scrupulous accuracy which, indeed, was a 
little questioned on its first appearance, but has 
since been completely established; and it is now 
admitted into all historical collections, as a book 
of unquestionable authority." 

If Irving had represented Rip van Winkle as the 
author of his History of New York, he would have 
acted precisely like the author of the Wallace. But 
he had already made himself famous under the 
name of Diedrich Knickerbocker. One has only to 
read Knickerbocker's charming narrative with the 
Wallace in mind, to be struck by how much they 
have in common, in method of composition as well 
as in resultant influence.* We lack, to be sure, all 
account of Blind Harry in his poem, because he 
wrote in person, while Kiiickerbocker's appearance 
is made quite clear to us by Irving, the supposed 
editor, but we see equally plainly in both cases the 



200 THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 

reason for the pseudonym. That Irving never ex- 
pected to have his work taken as literally true, and 
that he was himself amazed at its success, is appar- 
ent from the " Author's Apology " which he 
printed forty years after the History first ap- 
peared. Though it would be illuminating to repro- 
duce the whole of that apology here, space permits 
of only the concluding words : 

" I please myself," says Irving, " with the per- 
suasion that I have struck the right chord; that 
my dealings with the good old Dutch times, and 
the customs and usages derived from them, are in 
harmony with the feelings and humors of my 
townsmen; that I have opened a vein of pleasant 
associations and quaint characteristics peculiar to 
my native place, and which its inhabitants will not 
willingly suffer to pass away; and that, though 
other histories of New York may appear of higher 
claims to learned acceptation, and may take their 
dignified and appropriate rank in the family library 
Knickerbocker's history will still be received with 
good-humored indulgence, and be thumbed and 
chuckled over by the family fireside." 

If the name of Knickerbocker, a hundred and 
more years after he appeared as an American 
author, is still familiar to countless folk who do not 
know that he was a fictitious personage, the same 
may be said of Blind Harry, equally fictitious, 



THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 201 

who, over four hundred years after his appearance 
as a Scottish author, continues a name to conjure 
with. Thousands repeat enhvening features of his 
account of the national hero without reahzing 
their essential untruth. For the most part, how- 
ever, they are not acquainted with the whole story 
and do not realize that as a whole (to quote Mr. 
Neilson) " it requires an almost deranged patriot- 
ism to accept as worthy of the noble memory of 
Sir William Wallace so vitiated a tribute." Hap- 
pily the time is past when a publisher of the poem * 
could suggest that the concluding words of the 
Scotichronicon might be "in some respect, peculi- 
arly applicable to Henry's Book." 

Non Scotus est, Christe, cui non liber placet iste. 

He is not a Scotsman whom this Book does not please. 

" I believe," said Isocrates, " that the poetry of 
Homer won greater glory because he nobly praised 
those who warred against the barbarians, and that 
this was the reason why our ancestors conceived 
the desire to make his art honored both in the con- 
tests of the Muses and in the training of young 
men." The Wallace is not a great epic. It does not 
deal with a very remote hero. It bears on its face 
the stamp of individual invention. But it was an 
astonishingly successful incentive to patriotism, 
and this because the author so skilfully gathered 



202 THE WALLACE AS HISTORY 

up floating traditions and welded them together to 
foment war against an alien enemy. We shall never 
be able to judge how great was the effect of his 
putting his narrative into the mouth of a mysteri- 
ous blind bard. It subtly gave the poem an almost 
supernatural authority, and evoked a background 
of Homeric suggestion that lingers still. 



CHAPTER XI 

Blind Harry and Blind Homer 

Neither am I ignorant how fickle and 
inconstant a thing fiction is, as being 
subject to be drawn and wrested any way, 
and how great the commodity of wit and 
discourse is, that is able to apply things 
well, yet so as never meant by its first 
authors. 

Bacon 

IT has always been the custom of critics to name 
one poet after some other among predecessors 
in his art, who, by a process of transmigration of 
souls, as it were, might be fancied to live again 
in a modern descendant.* Major who, it will be re- 
membered, referred to King James as " a second 
Orpheus," hinted at the likeness, obvious by mis- 
apprehension, between Blind Harry and Blind 
Homer. That he did not go the full length of his 
thought and openly call Blind Harry " a second 
Homer " was probably due simply to the disrespect 
he felt for vernacular verse, except such as was 
written elegantly by illustrious personages, and 
to his inherited, overpowering reverence for the 
great bard of antiquity. " Quis in scriptis Homero 



204 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 

major " ? asked Walter Map. " Quegli e Omero 
poeta sovrano," wrote Dante. There was unanim- 
ity of opinion in the Middle Ages as to Homer's 
greatness, even among those who had not read 
him,* and no one then doubted that the real author 
of the glorious epics that went under his name was 
really blind. The first edition of a Greek Homer was 
published at Florence, by Demetrius Chalcondylas, 
in 1488, almost synchronously with the appearance 
of Blind Harry's Wallace, and it is no wonder that 
the two poets were connected. Dunbar, in his 
Goldyn Targe, a poem spiced as thick with classi- 
cal references as a ham with cloves, refers to 
Homer and his " ornate style so perfect," along 
with Tully, whose " lips sweet of rhetoric " he 
wished were his. The Wallace-poet likewise ad- 
mired the aureate tongues the old poets were 
figured to possess, and, as we have seen, adorned 
his tale with as rich robes of rhetoric as it would 
bear. When Macpherson came to write of Ossian, 
he made that blind ancient echo phrases of Homer. 
Possibly, knowledge of the eyeless bard of the 
Greeks may have encouraged the author of the 
Wallace in the use of his pseudonym. 

Though Major apparently balked at frankly 
reincarnating Homer in " Henricus caecus " (he 
perhaps suspected he should have been laughed 
at by his Parisian colleagues if he had done so), he 



BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 205 

enforced the likeness enough to make it natural for 
a less cautious reader to rush in where he had 
feared to tread and suggest a resemblance be- 
tween the actual authors of the Wallace and the 
Iliad. " Another Homer," soon exclaimed the ec- 
clesiastical Dempster,* gratified by his own 
shrewdness in catching the point of Major's veiled 
remarks, and praised Blind Harry extravagantly 
for his " operose and grand work." The comparison 
henceforth became inevitable among critics, 
though some took Dempster to task for pushing it 
so far. Thus, in the introduction to Morison's 
print of the Wallace in 1790, we read: " Henry, as 
Homer is said to have done, recited his verses, 
which were of a patriotic kind, to the people 
among whom he travelled. In any other respect, 
it must be owned, it was rather ridiculous to say 
he was another Homer. He was blind from his 
birth, which Homer was not, who is supposed to 
have become blind in the latter part of his life, 
chiefly from the meaning of his name, which 
name can admit of other interpretations." 

It was, of course, the supposed blindness of 
Blind Harry that chiefly justified and kept alive 
the parallel. To men like Ambrose Philips, 
" Homer was nothing more than a blind ballad- 
singer." t Blackwell, in his Life of Homer,X dwelt 
upon the advantages of the wandering life to a 



206 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 

poet, arguing that " Homer's being born poor, and 
living a strolling indigent bard, was in relation to 
his poetry, the greatest happiness that could be- 
fall him." And Irving, in his Lives of the Scottish 
Poets,* applied Blackwell's views to Blind Harry, 
adding: "If we consider it as the production of a 
man blind from his birth, his heroic poem cannot 
fail of ranking him among the most remarkable 
characters commemorated in the annals of litera- 
ture." Whereupon he quotes from Ellis: f " That a 
man born blind should excel in any science, is suflS- 
ciently extraordinary, though by no means with- 
out example; but that he should become an excel- 
lent poet is almost miraculous; because the soul 
of poetry is description. Perhaps, therefore, it may 
be safely assumed, that Henry was not inferior, in 
point of genius, either to Barbour or Chaucer; nor 
indeed to any poet of any age or country; but it is 
our present business to estimate the merit of the 
work, rather than the genius of the author." In 
all this we have a clear echo of the great discus- 
sion of Homer by Edward Young, William Duff, 
Robert Wood, and others, the Greek bard being 
to them the chief example of " original genius." 

How a strolling indigent bard could have come 
by his culture has, indeed, been debated almost as 
persistently of Harry as of Homer, and scholars 
even before the time of Wolf (1795), but still more 



BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 207 

since, have discussed in the one case as in the other 
how a blind man, or any author before the age of 
writing, was physically able to compose such long 
and carefully-wrought poems as those with which 
they were credited. Josephus declared that the 
works of Homer were not preserved in writing, but 
were sung and retained by memory. Henry Morley 
thought the Wallace might possibly have been 
written from Blind Harry's dictation, " or from 
the memory of parts of it by other minstrels who 
recited this or that adventure out of it among the 
people." * No matter how preserved, there are 
critics still who hold that its composition was " a 
wonderful effort of memory." j 

Such are the reaches of criticism. The Wallace 
question has run parallel to the Homeric question 
even to theories of interpolation and collaboration, 
as the summary of opinion in the first chapter has 
shown, while reminiscential comment on " the 
blind old Scottish Homer of the fifteenth cen- 
tury "I continues, even in this the twentieth. In the 
Cambridge History of English Literature § we find : 
" From Major's account it is clear that Harry be- 
longed to the class of wandering minstrels who 
recited, like Homer of old, the deeds of heroes to 
their descendants. . . . There is nothing in Harry, 
any more than in Homer, to show that the author 
was born blind. On the contrary, some of his de- 



208 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 

scriptions seem to show considerable powers of 
observation." * And Dr. Garnett, after quoting 
Major, wrote: t "He [Henry the Minstrel] was, 
therefore, a rhapsodist, J and Homeric in other par- 
ticulars than his blindness. . . . There is no doubt 
of his privation of sight, but the evidence of cul- 
ture in his poems, including traces of Chaucer, in- 
dicate that before his affliction he must have em- 
ployed his eyes in study. According to his own 
statement, indeed, his poem is mainly founded 
upon a Latin biography of Wallace, now lost, by 
his chaplain, John or Arnold Blair." 

To recapitulate, then, concerning the poet's 
blindness: Major stated that Harry was blind 
from birth, and this, being the sole evidence on the 
point, has of course remained the orthodox view. 
Those who have held it agree that the fact of 
blindness from birth constituted him one of the 
world's wonders; but Major said so, the poet's 
name bore it out, and there was for them there- 
fore no escape; a miracle was a miracle. Those 
nowadays who, denying Major's evidence at will, 
maintain that he only later became blind, argue 
merely on the basis of antecedent probability. 
They contend that the poet's descriptions of natu- 
ral scenes would be impossible for a blind man, and 
so on. Besides, he has to be given a chance to learn 
to read Blair's Latin book! Those, finally, who are 



BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 209 

convinced that the work was not written by a 
blind man hold that Harry was not its author. 

Now, this is not merely the modern sort of argu- 
ment about Homer but exactly the kind that went 
on formerly with regard to him. In antiquity noth- 
ing really was known of Homer. In early times his 
blindness was assumed,* for example, by Thucy- 
dides, — who accepted the Hymn to the Delian 
Apollo as Homeric, and must therefore (according 
to verse 172) have counted him blind, — and by 
Aristophanes, who also quotes it as Homeric. The 
etymology of his name by Ephorus f also presumes 
belief in his blindness. Whether he was blind from 
birth was at first not asked. Later, some writers 
declared that he was, obviously to enhance the 
wonder. Cicero, however, seems to have ques- 
tioned how, if so, the vividness of his descriptions 
was to be explained. Ephorus and Heraclides 
thought that he was not blind from birth, and the 
latter (as well as Pausanias) indicated circum- 
stances under which his affliction was brought 
about. Lucian denied his blindness altogether. 
Some gave credit to Pisistratus and others for the 
collection and arrangement of his poems. J 

Blind Harry mentions a knight. Sir Richard 
Wallace, blinded " through courage " in a struggle 
against the English; § whereupon his editor. Dr. 
Moir, felt constrained to note: " When Harry in- 



210 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 

troduces this blind hero, he says nothing of his 
own bHndness, any more than Homer does when 
he introduces his bhnd bard in the 8th Odyssey. 
Contrast with this reticence Milton's noble passage 
in the beginning of the third book of ' Paradise 
Lost.' Harry is in this respect more true to the epic 
spirit than Milton is." How irrelevant is this re- 
mark if the author of the Wallace was not blind at 
all! Mayhap the Greek Homer anticipated the 
Scottish Homer in " reticence " for the same rea- 
son. But Dr. Moir probably simply remembered 
that even in antiquity Homer was said to have 
pictured himself as Demodocus. The parallel treat- 
ment of Blind Harry with Homer illustrates for 
our instruction, how in modern criticism of a mod- 
ern poet the same things have been fancied as were 
fancied in ancient criticism of an ancient poet, and 
this not simply because the Hall of Criticism is 
notoriously a hall of echoes, but because conven- 
tions of thought are regularly established by 
reminiscence. 

Henceforth we shall probably hear no more 
about the Wallace-poet as a rhapsodist. That 
ghost is surely laid. But the present inquiry would 
be unenlightened if it did not lead to the percep- 
tion that Blind Harry and Blind Homer as tradi- 
tional figures have something in common; and with 
that idea we shall now deal. 



BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 211 

The ancients knew as little as we about Homer. 
At no time had the Greeks any consistent or au- 
thentic biography of him. He was assigned by them 
a date anywhere from 1159 B.C. (that given him 
by some authorities quoted in Philostratus) to 
686 B.C. (that given him by the historian Theo- 
pompus).* The oldest evidence put the poet simply 
in the time of the Trojan War. His father was said 
to be a contemporary of Priam. Seven, even seven- 
teen, cities claimed to be his birthplace, all the way 
from Ithaca to Colophon. 

Not until the sixth century B.C. does interest ap- 
pear to have been aroused in Homer as a person. 
But then many inventions arose, in part due to the 
contest of the cities which declared themselves to 
be his birthplace and sedulously adduced proofs in 
support of their claims. The poet's journeys were 
held to be established by his great geographical 
knowledge. He was said to have visited cities that 
were particularly praised in his poems. He was 
brought into connection with well-known men of 
olden time like Hesiod, Lycurgus, Medon, Creo- 
phylus, and with minor persons in the epics. 
Steadily his legendary life grew from more to 
more. We are told of his stay in Ithaca because of 
his love for Penelope, of his Egyptian or Baby- 
lonian origin, of the conjuring of spirits and the 
prophecies of sibyls. Perhaps the most important 



212 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 

features of his storied biography was an extraor- 
dinary dispute with Hesiod in Chalcis. According 
to one account, the poet died of grief, Hke Calchas 
after his defeat by Mopsus, because he could not 
solve a riddle. Eugaion gives him as mother a 
nymph Cretheis. According to Alexander of Paphos 
his nurse was the daughter of Horus, a priest of 
Isis; out of her breast flowed honey. He is said to 
have known the language of birds. No one in an- 
tiquity ever tried to paint an individual portrait 
of Homer — for obvious reasons. 

If we assume Blind Homer to be a strictly his- 
torical figure, then the many mythical features of 
his ancient biography must of necessity be deemed 
spurious accretions and disregarded. But if we 
start with the assumption that he was originally 
a figure of fiction, like Blind Ossian, a general 
pseudonym for those who wrote the Greek poems 
of the ancients, then the mythical traditions that 
attach to him may be regarded as the varying 
myths about other similar bards, and we must 
deem misleading the efforts of old euhemerizers to 
make him out a human being like unto themselves, 
according to their desires. 

It is not so long ago that Ossian, about whom so 
much fable clings, was accepted as an historical 
personage, a genuine leader of armed militia in 
ancient Erin. The true pedigree of his father Finn 



BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 213 

was supposed to be set forth in the Book of Leinster, 
and his death to have surely occurred in 283 a.d. 
But while politic persons, in deference to popular 
prejudice, still admit that "it is possible " that 
the Fians of story once lived, few Celtic scholars 
now treat them as other than mythical beings. In 
any case, " it is certain," as Alfred Nutt says, 
" that 99-lOOths of what is ascribed to them bears 
no relation whatever to historic fact, but is simply 
older myth slightly humanized, or new invention 
on the lines of older myth." * And we need not 
worry about the " possibility " of the other one 
hundredth having some basis in fact. The " it is 
possible " compromise of the politic, here as in 
other cases, has really been worked to the limits 
of sense, modern critics sometimes making con- 
fusion worse confounded in their anxious endeavors 
to unravel the skein of legend, and separate in mat- 
ter fundamentally fabulous the true from the 
false. " The art of transforming untrue impossi- 
bilities into untrue possibilities." f is surely 
profitless. 

The Scandinavians have gone beyond the Celts 
in a proper view of their old myths. In the North, 
by common consent, the old gods and heroes are 
for the most part relegated to the domain of fable. 
This, however, was not always the case, and it is 
illuminating to see how Odin, the wind-god, the 



214 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 

god of battle, the god of song and wisdom, who 
was plausibly identified by classical writers with 
Mercury, was gravely chronicled as an ancestor 
of the royal line of Norway by no less a person than 
Snorri Sturluson, one of the most brilliant his- 
torians in the world. Though, according to Snorri, 
Odin was " foreseeing and wise in wizardry," 
though " he knew the art and craft whereby he 
could change his hue and shape in any wise that 
he would," though " in battle he could make his 
foes blind or deaf or fear-stricken," though " he 
could wake up dead men from the earth," and 
" had might to know the fate of men and things 
not yet come to pass," nevertheless we find him 
presented in the opening of the Heimskringla as 
an historical monarch who ruled in Asia (As-gard 
being so interpreted),* and had we only Snorri's 
narrative, it would be open to any one to main- 
tain that the fabulous was merely an accretion to 
the record of a real person, or that two persons, 
one real and one fabulous, had got confused, even 
as Tzetzes postulated more than one Homer to 
account for the poet's supposed dispute with 
Hesiod.f 

This last is what is actually asserted of Bragi, 
the Old Norse god of poetry. In the Eddie lays J 
he appears as the son of Odin, the best of skalds, 
an old man {inn gamli) with a long white beard. 



BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 215 

His wife is Idunn, a goddess, who keeps the apples 
of immortality.* In a section of the prose Edda 
that bears his name, the Bragaroethr, or Sayings 
of Bragi, he is represented as telling the sea-god 
^gir how the kennings arose out of old myths and 
sagas. And yet, with curious perversity, excellent 
scholars maintain that this was all an after- 
thought. Bragi to them is the first provable skald. 
He lived in the ninth century. He went about from 
court to court and composed songs in praise of 
princes. t But gradually his human life and activity 
were forgotten; he became the prototype of all 
courtly skalds; he was made the god of poetry. 
That, however, is not the way of such processes. 
Bragi the Old is probably no more a real skald than 
Brig(it), the Irish goddess of poetry, whose name 
became celebrated as that of a saint, and the 
poems that pass under his name were no doubt 
ascribed to him as similar poems were ascribed to 
Ossian and the rest, merely to give them currency. 
Like all the poems put into the mouths of mythical 
bards, Bragi's dealt with old events, as for example 
with the story of Gefion, who aided by her four 
sons, begotten by a giant, ploughed herself a land, 
Selund, the modern Denmark, separate from 
Sweden — a story that Snorri amusingly rational- 
izes and makes occur in Odin's time, when that 
chieftain had lands in Turkey ! 



216 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 

It seems almost incredible that Snorri, wlio 
knew the real myths of the Elder Edda, could have 
permitted himself to repeat such absurdities from 
the point of view of the historian as he put in the 
Ynglingasaga, his only justification being that he 
here followed " olden songs, or story-lays, which 
men have had for their joyance," and " though 
we wot not surely the truth thereof, yet this we 
know for a truth, that men of lore of old time have 
ever held such lore for true." * But this was not 
much more than was done by Milton in his treat- 
ment of the Trojan story in the History of Britain; 
" It is curious," says Tylor,t " to watch Milton's 
mind emerging, but not wholly emerging, from 
the state of the mediaeval chronicler. He men- 
tions in the beginning of his * History of Britain,' 
the * outlandish figment ' of the four kings. Magus, 
Saron, Druis, and Bardus; he has no approval for 
the giant Albion, son of Neptune, who subdued the 
island and called it after his own name; he scoffs 
at the four sons of Japhet, called Francus, Roma- 
nus, Alemannus, and Britto. But when he comes 
to Brutus and the Trojan legend, his sceptical 
courage fails him : ' those old and inborn names of 
successive kings, never any to have bin real per- 
sons, or don in their lives at least som part of 
what so long hath bin remember'd, cannot be 
thought without too strict an incredulity.' " 



BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 217 

The material that Milton used in his History he 
knew to be mainly fable, but he stilled his con- 
science by the conviction that its preservation 
would be useful to poets, much as Plato justified 
transforming tales of mythology in the interest of 
morals; '* because we do not know the truth about 
ancient times, we make falsehood as much like 
truth as we can, and so turn it to account." * Such 
lying Plato thought " useful and not hateful," 
comparing it with the lie to deceive enemies, or 
that to prevent friends from doing harm in a fit of 
madness or illusion. The methods of modern 
scholars, we may note, are not very different. 
Some strain their own credulity to sustain desire, 
willingly repeating notions which they know to be 
unfounded yet are unable to prove false, or are 
loath to see die; while others perpetuate tradition 
as tradition, without admitting full belief in it, 
yet thus lead astray the undiscriminating, who 
make no shades in credence. Of course, no one can 
deny that legend attaches to real persons, just as 
unwarranted miracles are attributed to real saints ; 
but in candor it ought not to be more difficult to 
distinguish between Homer and iEschylus, or Job 
and David, than between Odin and Olaf Tryggva- 
son, or St. Brendan and Bede. 

The Eddie lays still remain independent in the 
main of one another. No transcendent poet rose 



218 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 

in the North able to weld them together into fixed 
epic union. But had such a plan been conceived, it 
would most likely have been Odin the god of wise- 
saying who would have become its centre. Even 
in the Hdvamdl, the Sayings of Harr, as it exists in 
the manuscripts, we see the tendency to collect 
material of unlike form about this name. The 
Hdvamdl embraces what is left of several independ- 
ent lays conveying ancient wisdom, tales of gods 
and giants, and magic runes, as well as a body of 
practical precepts to guide men in everyday life. 
In one of those lays Odin is figured as telling in 
person some of his own romantic exploits, but the 
title of the collection seems to derive from the 
fiction of representing him as the mouthpiece of 
wise instruction, the hoary sage delivering his wise 
saws and old instances (forn doemi) according to 
the duties of his office. The chief mythological 
poem of the Edda is a " prophecy " put into the 
mouth of a Sibyl, who in beginning speaks: " Thou 
Valfather [Odin] wouldst have me tell the ancient 
histories of men as far as I can remember." Per- 
haps " Edda," which in the only place where it is 
used in the old lays * seems to mean " grand- 
mother," may be a term equivalent to Sibyl. Harr, 
alias Odin, was pictured as a blind wayfarer, who 
went about from one place to another singing lays 
and giving counsel. Had only Old Norse mythologi- 



BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 219 

cal material been welded together long enough ago 
by some great poet who presented it as the words 
of Harr, inspired by the Sibyl, we might to-day 
be wondering what were the actual facts about the 
life of Blind Harr, as well as Blind Harry, Blind 
Ossian, and Blind Homer. Indeed, we have a good 
illustration of what was natural in the way that 
Snorri in the thirteenth century makes the frame- 
work of his recapitulation of Old Norse mythology, 
an imaginary conversation between Gangleri, the 
Wanderer, and Harr, the High One, in which the 
latter gives information and relates old tales to his 
questioner, even as Caeilte does to St. Patrick in 
the Colloquy of the Elder sJ^ 

To whom were attributed the beast-fables that 
are even now current among us ^ To ^sop, 
a dwarf because of an offense against the gods,t 
or to Romulus, fabled founder of Rome, who was 
carried to heaven by his father Mars in a fiery 
chariot. Who wrote about the Trojan War ^ The 
imagined contemporaries of that event, Dares 
Phrygius for the one side, Dictys Cretensis for the 
other. Who was Bishop Golias (Goliath) who had 
such a wonderful Apocalypse and made such a can- 
did Confession betraying the former state of the 
clergy? 

No one now will dispute that it was in olden days 
a custom to use personages of fiction as burden- 



220 BLIND HARRY ANB BLIND HOMER 

bearers of ancient narrative, just as it has always 
been a custom to use fictitious personages to voice 
individual thoughts, and that if these personages 
attracted, they were regularly given more thoughts 
to utter. Our study here is with imaginary authors 
and the reason why they were chosen by the real 
authors whose books went under their illusory 
names. It is, of course, a very different sort of study 
to try to arrive at the character and station of 
these actual poets. We are primarily concerned 
with the Eddie poems, the Ossianic poems, the 
Homeric poems, just as we are with Beowulf, the 
Chanson de Roland, the Cid, the Nihelungenlied, 
and other such anonymous epics, as artistic crea- 
tions. But we cannot judge them freely until we 
cease to take seriously as matters of fact deliberate 
fictions about their authorship. It may be there is 
not a single old epic whose author's name we really 
know. Each poem must be studied in the sole light 
of its own radiance. And there is gain in that, de- 
spite the insatiable longing of modern poets for 
advertisement, and the indefatigable search of 
modern critics for personalities. 

It looks, then, as if Homer were first the name of 
a mythical or fabricated personage, not unlike Os- 
sian, or Odin, to whom, for some reason or other, 
was early ascribed much epic material about the 
ancients of the Greek race, which was finally trans- 



BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 221 

formed into noble poems by a transcendent writer. 
These poems, though they gradually superseded 
the more primitive, disunited accounts of the old 
heroes, made no claim to a change of substance, 
and retained the traditional name. He was only re- 
cording, as a Muse, or a Sibyl, or a spirit of the de- 
parted, or simply as wise ancestors, advised him, 
with infinite skill to be sure, but with the imper- 
sonal object that epic poets have so often set them- 
selves — to benefit posterity by retelling the deeds 
of past heroes. It is perhaps no accident that the 
authors of the (by comparison) recent epic poems, 
Beowulf, and the rest, remain unknown, though 
each of them, as we have it, is the work of an in- 
dividual of exceptional power. These writers ex- 
alted first the names of their heroes, not their own. 
If it is asked why the mythical Homer was 
pictured as blind, we can give no single definite 
reply; for even in earliest antiquity his blindness 
was not understood, or at least not explained in any 
one way to satisfy all. The numerous attempts at 
an explanation merely show the minds of men at 
work making conjectures along the lines of divers 
traditions due to mythopoeic fancy. In the begin- 
ning, it is clear, the mythical Homer was thought 
blind for some mythical reason; his blindness was 
believed to be due to some situation in which the 
deities were involved. Only later did scholars en- 



222 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 

deavor to rationalize myths already applied to him, 
or to invent explanations more in accord with 
natural probability. But throughout antiquity the 
belief in the inspiration of Homer, and therefore in 
his connection with divine beings, ever maintained 
its hold over the Greeks and guided their medita- 
tions on the epithet that had come down to them 
from time immemorial attached to him. 

We have already gathered from our considera- 
tion of Celtic instances what primitive men in a 
Homeric state of civilization * felt might result 
from oflPending the gods, the givers of the power of 
song. These narratives, whether borrowed from 
the Greeks, or of general Aryan origin, were in ac- 
cord with classical thought. The Celts, as we have 
seen, believed that otherworld beings had the 
power to deprive mortals of eyesight when these 
had aroused their displeasure. They recorded in- 
stances of ancients who by luck or favor pene- 
trated to faery, the noble seat of all the arts and 
sciences, lived long in that elysium, and returned 
to earth bards, but blind. They felt that their 
deities were able to bless or blast, or both at the 
same time, to endow a favorite with magical pow- 
ers, and yet, offended after he departed from their 
company, to hide the physical ways he might seek 
to use to reach again their divine abode, or merely 
from vindictiveness to plunge him into the misery 



BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 223 

of outer darkness. Similar conceptions are behind 
the statements in Homer regarding the supremely 
gifted Demodocus. When Alcinous invited that 
" sacred bard " to entertain Odysseus in the palace, 
he remarked that " surely God has granted him 
exceeding skill in song." And the poet went out of 
his way to explain that the cause of the blindness 
of Demodocus was the cause of his song: " The 
Muse had greatly loved him and had given him 
good and ill; she took away his eyesight, but gave 
delightful song." 

The Muses * in Greek correspond to the faery 
queens of Celtic tradition. Originally regarded as 
the nymphs of inspiring wells, near which they 
were worshipped, they become, in the Homeric 
poems, the goddesses of song and poetry, and live 
in Olympus. The powers which we find most fre- 
quently assigned to them are that of bringing be- 
fore the mind of the mortal poet the events which 
he has to relate; and that of conferring upon him 
the gift of song, and of giving gracefulness to what 
he utters. A further feature in the character of the 
Muses is their prophetic power, which belongs to 
them, partly because they were regarded as in- 
spiring nymphs, and partly because of their con- 
nection with the prophetic god of Delphi. 

The Muses, like faery queens, inflicted penalties 
on those who displeased them. We recall how the 



224 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 

Sirens, who ventured upon a contest with them, 
were deprived of the feathers of their wings; and 
how the nine daughters of Pierus, who presumed 
to rival them, were metamorphosed into birds. 
But especially interesting to us is the case of the 
bard Thamyris, who, likewise presuming to excel 
them, was punished with blindness. In Demodocus 
and Thamyris, then, we have two mythical Greek 
bards, once favorites of the Muses, who were af- 
flicted by these same divine ladies with blindness 
for some offense. 

There were, furthermore, many other Greek per- 
sonages who were afflicted with blindness by a 
deity, for example Lycurgus, blinded by Zeus be- 
cause of impiety, therefore " hated by the im- 
mortal gods "; Phineus, the sage counsellor of the 
Argonauts, who had received his prophetic powers 
from Apollo, blinded by the gods for having com- 
municated to mortals the divine counsels of Zeus 
about the future; and, most prominent of all, 
Tiresias, from whom Odysseus sought counsel in 
the underworld, and who had the power there 
among the shades to put strict injunctions on the 
hero when he left that place, the disobeying of 
which brought a promised penalty, like neglect of 
the directions given a mortal in faery when he 
sought his old home. 



BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 225 

As to Tiresias, the cause of his bhndness was 
beHeved to have been the fact that he had revealed 
to men things which, according to the will of the 
gods, they ought not to know, or that he had seen 
Athena while she was bathing, on which occasion 
the goddess is said to have blinded him by sprink- 
ling water into his face, or because he aroused the 
indignation of Hera, when he decided against her 
in a dispute with Zeus. Tiresias acts so prominent 
a part in the mythical history of Greece that there 
is scarcely any event with which he is not con- 
nected in some way or other, and this introduction 
of the seer in so many occurrences separated by 
long intervals of time, was facilitated by the belief 
in his long life. Faery was the home of prophecy as 
well as of poesy, and the sufferings of blind seers as 
well as of blind bards were supposed to spring from 
the same supernatural cause.* 

In the Bible we have literal belief in blindness as 
able to be either produced or healed by the Deity 
or his instruments. Elislia smote the Syrians with 
blindness, even as angels of the Lord at the house 
of Lot brought the same affliction on the men of 
Sodom, " so that they wearied themselves to find 
the door." Saul was stricken with blindness on the 
way to Damascus, but after a supernatural vision 
his sight was restored to him by Ananias and he was 
filled with the Holy Spirit. Filled with the Holy 



226 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 

Spirit, he himself imposed blindness on the false 
prophet Bar-jesus, Elymas the sorcerer, " and im- 
mediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness, 
and he went about seeking some one to lead him 
by the hand." * 

Still more significant is the attitude of Christ 
Himself to blindness, which the Jews plainly 
thought might be a penalty of sin. " There was 
brought unto Him one possessed with a devil, 
blind and dumb, and He healed him, insomuch 
that the blind and dumb both spake and saw." 
" In that same hour He cured many of their in- 
firmities and plagues and of evil spirits, and unto 
many that were blind He gave sight." The method 
Jesus used to heal the man of Bethsaida was to 
spit in his eyes and put His hands upon him. In the 
case of the blind beggar at the pool of Siloam, " He 
spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, 
and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with 
the clay." To heal other blind men, however. He 
merely " touched their eyes," while the cure of 
Bartimaeus was made to depend solely on his 
faith.t 

That the Jews looked upon congenital blindness 
as an affliction by the Deity is clear from the 
question that the disciples asked about the man at 
the pool: " Master, who did sin, this man, or his 
parents, that he was born blind ? " And Jesus 's 



BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 227 

answer — " Neither hath this man sinned, nor his 
parents ; but that the works of God should be made 
manifest in him " * — was a definite claim to His 
divinity. Only a god could give or take away sight. 
Notable are the words that Moses spake when 
Jehovah appeared to him in the burning bush: 
" O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither hereto- 
fore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant; 
but I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue. And 
the Lord said unto him. Who hath made man's 
mouth ? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the 
seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? Now 
therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth and 
teach thee what thou shalt say." f The Hebrew 
God, like a Celtic deity could deprive of sight and 
give eloquence of speech. 

Homer, says Plato, " never had the wit to dis- 
cover why he was blind." It was just as well. 
Homer was evidently blind for some divine reason. 
But what ? Was it his own sin or the sin of his 
parents ? Let every man guess according to paral- 
lel. Plato showed what he was thinking about 
when he brought the supreme bard into connection 
with Stesichorus, whose losing of his eyesight, as 
the philosopher explained, was the penalty which 
was inflicted upon him for reviling the lovely 
Helen. J Though special reasons are thus given in 
individual cases for blindness of poets, they all 



228 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 

seem but variants of the same sort of superstition, 
and this is true of the earhest as of the latest times. 
The mythical Homer was afflicted, as it were, for 
the sins of his mythical fathers; even so his rhap- 
sodic descendants, when need was felt, to the tenth 
generation. But this affliction was beneficial to 
their renown, since it implied supernatural associa- 
tion. 

Blindness is still, not only an open sesame to 
sympathy, but a stimulus to awe. Wordsworth 
touches the point nearly when, in the Prelude,^ 
he explains his feelings on suddenly seeing a blind 
beggar in a London street. 

On the shape of that unmoving man, 

His steadfast face and sightless eyes, I gazed, 

As if admonished from another world. 

Admonition! He was in " the felt presence of the 
Deity." 

There is no need to repeat here all the " mytho- 
logical errors " connected with Homer's blindness,! 
but one deserves attention. An anonymous writer, 
in one of the Lives, says that. Homer requesting 
the gods to grant him a sight of Achilles, that hero 
rose, but in armor so bright that it struck Homer 
blind with the blaze. J Such conceptions also find a 
parallel in primitive Celtic story. Blindness, it was 
said, resulted from looking at the Fal's wheel, § and 
the same penalty attached to over-inquisitiveness 



BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 229 

in prying out the gods' mysteries. In a Dinnsen- 
chas we are told how the well of inspiration in faery 
might not be approached save by certain beings 
and in certain stated ways: " Boand wife of Nech- 
tan son of Labraid went to the Secret Well which 
was in the green of sid Nechtan. Whoever went to 
it would not come from it without his two eyes 
bursting, unless it was Nechtan himself and his 
three cupbearers." * A similar idea is present in the 
puzzling Old Norse story of Odin's pledging his 
eye to Sokkmimir, the giant of the abyss, for a 
draught of the deep well of wisdom. Under the 
Ash of Yggdrasill, as Snorri informs us in the 
Gylfaginning,^ is " Mimir's Well, wherein wisdom 
and understanding are stored; and he is called 
Mimir who keeps the well. He is full of ancient 
lore, since he drinks of the well from the Gjallar- 
Horn. Thither came Allfather and craved one drink 
of the well — but he got it not until he had laid 
his eye in pledge. So says Voluspa: 

All know I, Odin where the eye thou hiddest, 

In the wide-renowned well of Mimir; 

Mimir drinks mead every morning 

From Valfather's pledge. Wit ye yet, or what ? " 

Odin escaped from the underworld one-eyed, 
but " full of ancient lore," a famous pulr,X or bard. 
In the form of a one-eyed, long-bearded old sage, 
he tells King Olaf of days long gone by. 



230 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 

Confused with such ideas of blindness as a pen- 
alty on mortals, was no doubt that of blindness as 
a disguise for immortals who chose to appear on 
earth to effect their wills. Merlin, as we have seen, 
and other supernatural folk in Celtic fable, as- 
sumed the likeness of blind bards when they de- 
sired. Odin was wont to go about under the name 
Blindr, the Blind One, a god in disguise. He thus 
was represented in both aspects, blind because of 
his own divine power as a shape-shifter, and blind 
because he sought divine power and had to pay 
the price of his ambition. 

Ephorus thought the name Homer simply meant 
the Blind One, and it may be that the mythical 
personage of that name who was made the great 
mouthpiece of ancient Greek lore, was conceived 
of as actually a god. But it is not necessary to go 
so far. Granted the belief in deities as the source of 
occult knowledge, if men tried to picture a bard of 
superior authority, they could hardly fail to im- 
agine his association with otherworld powers. If 
any ancient bard (fabled or real) had uncommon 
skill or wisdom, he might naturally in primitive 
times be supposed to have derived these from the 
gods, and he would almost inevitably draw like a 
magnet, in some form or other, the conception of 
blindness attaching to mortals with divine gifts, 
just as national leaders of fame, whether it be the 



BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 231 

mythical Odin and Arthur, or the historical James 
IV of Scotland and Napoleon, have had attached 
to them the conception of immortality, and 
aroused the same hope of return to their native 
land to free it from a foreign yoke. To us such 
notions may seem mere skimble-skamble stuff, 
but that is only because we do not know their 
origin, or recognize that primitive ideas still hold 
sway with primitive-minded men. It must not be 
forgotten that the reason why Joan of Arc moved 
the soldiers of France was because they believed 
in her intercourse with and guidance by spirits. 

Critics nowadays act like the euhemerizers of the 
sixth and seventh centuries of our era (a happy 
time for their sort) when they try to make out that 
ancient bards were blind, or that ancient smiths 
were lame,* because these professions were possi- 
ble for them, and the state thus got service from 
persons who were otherwise useless. No one denies 
that in historical times blind men for good reason 
have often chosen to sing, just as they have often 
chosen to beg, or that cripples have often chosen 
occupations where they could sit down, just as 
they too have often chosen to beg. But the lame, 
halt and blind among the gods cannot be treated 
from such a utilitarian standpoint. Hephaestus, 
teacher of the arts, was lame and halt, even as 
Odin, god of poetry, was blind, for a mythological 



232 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 

reason. In America, one may frequently see dwarf- 
ish hunchbacks employed to run elevators. Very 
good. Very natural. But that does not force us to 
believe that the dwarfs and hunchbacks of old fic- 
tion were actually human beings, only infirm. As 
a matter of fact, the dwarfs and hunchbacks of 
Celtic and Germanic story were all, for aught we 
know, supernatural in origin. 

Common sense should show us that as the soul is 
as real as the body, so myth is as real as fact, that 
each can be combined with the other, and that the 
nature of the foundation in any particular instance 
can not be determined except by unprejudiced in- 
quiry. Plainly, the process did not always go one 
way.* That deities were humanized is as certain 
as that humans were deified. If we have far more 
clear cases of the latter than the former, it is be- 
cause records of humans are far more numerous 
than imaginings of gods. But the continual process 
of deifying men shows the eternal presence of a 
love of poetic feigning in all ordinary mortals 
which witnesses to the mood of the first creation 
of gods and devils. Fact must be transfigured to 
give it permanent appeal to the masses because of 
their ever latent consciousness of supernatural be- 
ings who can manifest themselves on earth. Gods 
are still made in men's image, as well as men in the 
image of gods.f 



BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 233 

For a long time the blind bard has been as 
fanciful a conception as the noble savage, or the 
inspired idiot; but it was not so formerly. If most 
blind bards in primitive story were credited with 
connections with the supernatural world, it was 
because, as we shall see later, that was believed to 
be the chief seat of inspiration, and if they were 
declared, for some offence against a deity, to have 
lost their first sight, they might be believed to have 
gained second sight, by virtue of which, all would 
admit, they had the godlike power to guide men, 
and might be used at any time as vehicles of any 
sort of wisdom. 

It is safe to assert that no learned man has ever 
heard of an actual blind poet without thinking of 
the mythical blind poets and prophets celebrated 
in antiquity. Milton was not singular when he 
consoled himself in his own affliction by recalling 

Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides, 
And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old — 

and longed for mysterious inner sight, like that 
which. Homer says, the Muse gave Demodocus. 

So much the rather thou celestial Light 

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers 

Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence 

Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell 

Of things invisible to mortal sight.* 



234 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 

It is not surprising that Milton was hailed in Eng- 
land as " old Homer's youngest son," " great 
Homer of our isle," " Britannia's Homer." * Later 
writers accepted his comparison of his plight with 
that of the ancient Greeks, and willingly played 
upon his allegorical interpretation of the old myths 
with which they were gladly familiar. Thus for 
example, Andrew Marvell (1620-1678) : 

Just Heaven thee, like Tiresias, to requite 
Rewards with prophecy thy loss of sight. 

John Hughes (1677-1720) : 

The Muse with transport lov'd him; yet, to fill 
His various lot, she blended good with ill; 
Deprived him of his eyes, but did impart 
The heavenly gift of song, and all the tuneful art. 

Thomas Gray, in his Progress of Poesy, pictures 
Milton as afflicted for his presumption, because, 
hke Homer, who longed for a view of the great 
Achilles, or here more definitely, because like 
Ezekiel, he wished to see the glory of the appear- 
ance of the Lord, 

He that rode sublime 
Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy, 
The secrets of th' abyss to spy. 
He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time: 
The living throne, the sapphire blaze. 
Where angels tremble while they gaze. 
He saw, but blasted with excess of light 
Clos'd his eyes in endless night. 



BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 235 

This comes nearer the mythological truth than 
the explanation of Stephen Phillips in his striking 
poem To Milton — Blind: 

He who said suddenly, " Let there be light! " 

To thee the dark dehberately gave; 

That those full eyes might undistracted be 

By this beguiling show of sky and field, 

This brilliance, that so lures us from the Truth. 

He gave thee back original night. His own 

Tremendous canvas, large and blank and free. 

Where at each thought a star flashed out and sang. 

O blinded with a special lightning, thou 

Hadst once again the virgin Dark! 

All of which is mere fruit of modern fancy, though 
it adopt the old idea of "a special lightning." 
More antique is the alternative explanation the 
same poet suggests : 

Or rather a special leave to thee was given 

By the high power, and thou with bandaged eyes 

Wast guided through the glimmering camp of God. 

Thy hand was taken by angels who patrol 

The evening, or are sentries to the dawn. 

Or pace the wide air everlastingly. 

Thou wast admitted to the presence, and deep 

Argument heardest, and the large design 

That brings this world out of the woe to bliss.* 

Goethe represents Faust as punished by blind- 
ness for his selfish desire to have a station on the 
linden-trees whence to overlook his lands, and the 
crime to which it led, but makes him gain at the 



236 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 

same time. When the " grisly old Sisters " appear 
to him, Care remarks: 

Perfect in external senses, 
Inwardly his darkness dense is. 

After she breathes in his eyes and blinds him, 
Faust exclaims: 

The night seems deeper now to press around me, 
But in my inmost spirit all is light.* 

Philosophizing on blindness was inevitable. 
Even in antiquity Homer's blindness was ex- 
plained allegorically, according to Suidas, as 
" blindness to desires that press upon one through 
the eyes." f And it is well known how the mystics 
believed that by shutting their eyes they might 
see the more inwardly.J In 1694 Gildon suggested 
that Milton needed for Paradise Lost that inner 
illumination which came in consequence of his 
blindness, § and such views prevailed during the 
eighteenth century, as, indeed, perhaps to-day. 
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in a sonnet to his " light- 
reft " friend Philip Bourke Marston, hints at that 
unfortunate writer's having more piercing inner 
sight than the " light-blest." There was much to 
justify the idea. All blind persons have undoubt- 
edly had compensations for their blindness, and 
Milton's scenes sometimes show a sweep and 
grandeur that may actually be the result of his 



BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 237 

aloof, uncorrected, mental images. Bird-fanciers 
have been known to prick the eyes of the chaflBnch 
to make him warble better, and the blindness of 
lyric poets like Marston no doubt makes them the 
more prone to turn within themselves fruitfully to 
explore their own souls. But such is not the way to 
produce epic poets, who need large contact with 
the world and man to penetrate deeply the ele- 
ments of life. 

To go farther with the inquiry into the real or 
possible influence of blindness (whole or partial) 
upon an author would be out of place here, and 
might smack too much of old entertaining but 
futile discussions like Blackwell's on Homer, 
where poverty, the lack of learning and the need 
of wandering, are claimed to have been contribu- 
tory to his original genius, and in general advanta- 
geous in the development of a great bard. Most 
scholars believe that neither the Iliad nor the Wal- 
lace could possibly have been written by one phys- 
ically blind, but some critics of recent times have 
held the opposite. Taste without knowledge con- 
fuses wisdom among literary historians. 

" Homer never existed, of course," says John 
Masefield,* " but the old idea of the poet's being 
blind is very significant." Undoubtedly! And in 
more ways, as I have tried to show, than critics of 
blind poets have hitherto supposed. I content my- 



238 BLIND HARRY AND BLIND HOMER 

self now with emphasizing what I believe to be 
also significant, the fact, namely, that much of the 
material for the philosophic ruminations of modern 
men on blindness has been derived from the con- 
sideration of ancient fabulous personages whose 
blindness was mythical. But a myth is only a 
poetic conception. Even as " the sight of lovers 
feedeth those in love," poetry feedeth poets, phi- 
losophy philosophers. Both poets and philosophers 
are wont to sit and dream " in chambers haunted 
by old memories." 



CHAPTER XII 

The Progress of Conceptions of Poesy 

Remember the days of old, consider 

the years of many generations; 

ask thy father, and he will show 

thee: thy elders and they will tell 

thee. 

Book of Deuteronomy 

1ITTLE by little," says Tylor,* " in what 
-i seemed the most spontaneous fiction, a more 
comprehensive study of the sources of poetry and 
romance begins to disclose a cause for each fancy, 
an education that has led up to each train of 
thought, a store of inherited materials from out of 
which each province of the poet's land has been 
shaped, and built over and peopled." 

The truth of this statement is most evident to the 
student of comparative literature who has tried to 
get at the peculiar personality and peculiar con- 
tribution of authors by inquiry into their ethnic 
and literary heritage as well as their personal as- 
pirations. For such a student has at least discov- 
ered that all great poets have their roots down 
deep in the past, and that one can scarcely com- 

239 



240 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

prehend why Homer, Dante, Shakespeare or Mil- 
ton so strongly influenced posterity until one rec- 
ognizes how much they themselves were fashioned 
by previous influences. Myths occupy a large and 
precious part of the inherited materials that mod- 
ern poets have seen fit to cherish, even as in myth 
both their physical and spiritual forbears, with 
divers degrees of insight, took delight and found 
instruction. And this because myths, in forma- 
tion and transformation, have always been im- 
portant vehicles of speculative and enlivening 
imagination. 

Early myths were the poetic inventions of primi- 
tive men, intellectually curious but credulous, 
eager to question the whys and wherefores of 
things but satisfied to explain by story what they 
could not make clear by science. When such men 
speculated about mysterious phenomena and 
found no solution according to any laws of their 
experience, they set to work in childlike fashion 
to imagine what might be, and framed narratives 
of fanciful possibility as substitutes for statements 
of true knowledge. These narratives, if interesting, 
were handed down through the ages, by themselves 
and for themselves, with slight understanding as 
time went by of their first reason for being, ever 
subject to changes due to fresh poetic or dull pro- 
saic interpretation. Some myths are now hope- 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 241 

lessly obscure, but others reveal clearly to the 
student the subjects of wonder that led to their 
creation, and the mental habits of those who gave 
them shape. 

One of the bewildering phenomena at which men 
in early ages persistently wondered was the state 
of inspiration, and the nature of this they tried to 
divine. Seeing certain of their fellows specially 
gifted as mages and musicians, poets and prophets, 
they meditated on their condition. How came it, 
they asked, that persons of human flesh and blood 
could do things beyond the scope of the general ? 
Why were some abnormally gifted, some peculiarly 
endowed, some at times strangely aroused ? 
" Whence hath this man this wisdom ? " Whence 
in particular the " genius " of an exalted author, 
the animation of enthralling speech ? What is the 
source of poesy ? 

Such questions have never ceased to absorb 
philosophic inquirers, yet little advance has been 
made in the answers offered. Scholars have taught 
us much about the actual beginnings of verse com- 
position, but when we seek knowledge of its es- 
sence rather than its forms, of its moving power 
rather than the medium employed, we are con- 
fined to fancies, mere fancies, similar to those of 
our forefathers in antiquity. Only, in primitive 
times men started with different conceptions of the 



242 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

origin and plan of the universe, which determined 
the explanation of the problems they tried to solve 
and the method of presentation they chose. 

Whether, as has been asserted, " the mental 
condition of the lower races is the key to poesy " 
itself, it is certainly the key to the initial concep- 
tions of it as " heaven-bred." Primitive men held 
an animative view of the universe. They believed 
the world peopled with spirits, and themselves sur- 
rounded by souls. They attributed all mysteries to 
divine agency. Poesy, they felt sure, was in the first 
instance due to deities. And these views they origi- 
nally embodied, by natural habit, in the shapes of 
myth. The early myths of poetic inspiration were 
the work of poets trying to show forth in the 
guise of story the true significance of things, the 
ways of gods to men. 

In A Midsummer-Night'' s Dream Shakespeare 
states the case of the poet myth-maker with per- 
ception unsurpassed: 

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; 

And as imagination bodies forth 

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 

A local habitation and a name. 

Such tricks hath strong imagination, 

That, if it would but apprehend some joy, 

It comprehends some bringer of that joy.* 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 243 

Every word in this passage should be pondered. 
Whatever view Shakespeare himself held as to the 
nature of poetic genius (a matter for separate 
study), he here makes Theseus of Athens present 
with wonderful skill the ancient conception of the 
divinely-inspired bard. On the basis of the idea of 
" fine frenzy " we have already touched, and to it 
we shall presently return. Here, first, let us not fail 
to grasp the significance of what Shakespeare 
makes the result of that frenzy, the product of the 
poet's pen when his imagination seeks to body 
forth the forms of things unknown: he turns them 
to shapes and gives to airy nothing, mere brain 
fantasies, inconstant dream images, a local habita- 
tion and a name. Myths offer us shapes and habi- 
tations and names that are simply due to the effort 
of poets to materialize ideas, the better to get them 
grasped. If a poet apprehends some joy, with 
strong imagination he comprehends some bringer 
of that joy. 

The Celts, as well as the Greeks, apprehended 
the otherworld as the land par excellence of music 
and minstrelsy, of sapience and wisdom, of long 
memory and far sight. Were some men pecuHarly 
able to give delight to others by superior skill in 
the arts, empowered to instruct them in past lore 
or guide their doubting steps, they imagined that 
these men owed their exceptional success to the 



244 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

possession of divine properties, or attributes, and 
made up tales of how they were gained. Only two 
ways seemed natural — by gift or " lift," by luck 
or theft. So two forms of story arose, the one ex- 
plaining how mortals enjoyed the favor of the 
gods, who came to visit them or took them to dwell 
with them, and endowed them with their own vir- 
tues, the other explaining how mortals, outwitting 
the gods, ravished from them their magic pos- 
sessions. 

The latter, which we shall first consider, appears 
to be the more original, for it usually concerns 
creatures of a lower order than the great created 
gods, yet themselves masters of illusion and 
phantasy. Though once perhaps demi-gods or 
daimones, in the end they were envisaged as heroes, 
who after great trial and tribulation became the 
benefactors of men, securing from grudging primal 
powers the instruments of culture and the arts. 

Thus mysterious in nature were Amergin and 
Taliessin, two of the most celebrated Celtic bards 
and prophets, varying forms, it is conjectured, of 
one mythic original.* 

In the poem, already examined, in which Talies- 
sin describes his career, he explains: "I have 
obtained the muse from the cauldron of Ceridwen," 
and the tale of Taliesin, in which the poem is en- 
shrined, begins by telling how that old hag under- 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 245 

took, in the interests of an ill-favored son, to boil a 
cauldron, " which from the beginning of its boiling 
might not cease to boil for a year and a day, until 
three blessed drops were obtained of the grace of 
inspiration." So she set Gwion Bach to stir the 
cauldron. " And one day, towards the end of the 
year, as Ceridwen was culling plants and making 
incantations, it chanced that three drops of the 
charmed liquor flew out of the cauldron and fell 
upon the finger of Gwion Bach. And by reason of 
their great heat he put his finger into his mouth, 
and the instant he put those marvel-working drops 
into his mouth he foresaw everything that was to 
come, and perceived that his chief care must be 
to guard against the wiles of Ceridwen, for vast 
was her skill. And in very great fear he fled towards 
his own land." 

The witch pursued Gwion, who assumed all man- 
ner of shapes, even as she did after him, until at 
last he turned into a grain of wheat, and she 
as a high-crested black hen swallowed him, bore 
him nine months, and then, when delivered, found 
him so beautiful that she could not bear to kill 
him. Therefore she wrapped him in a leathern bag 
and cast him into the sea. He was fished out, a tiny 
fellow, by a hapless youth called Elphin, and be- 
came a most famous bard and prophet. He was 
all-wise, knew the past and future, and spoke be- 



246 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

fore the king "with a sapient Druid's words." He 
shows his supernatural wisdom in various ways, 
much like Merlin before Uter Pendragon. " He fur- 
ther told the king various prophecies of things that 
should be in the world." * 

As to Taliessin's visits to the otherworld, Rhys 
writes: "He not only professes to have been in 
Caer Sidi and the Glass Fortress, he not only 
boasts having taken part in the harrying of Hades; 
but it is a familiar country to him, and he has 
witnessed how its inhabitants, whom neither plague 
nor death can reach, quaff a drink sweeter than 
wine from a copious fountain with which that sub- 
marine isle is blest. He knows every dwarf beneath 
the ocean, and has observed the rank assigned to 
each. This is not all : so truly is he a bard, that he 
is recognized as such even in the mythic mother- 
country of all bardism and knowledge; and that 
recognition takes the form of a bardic or profes- 
sorial chair, reserved for him in Caer Sidi, and for 
his successors in his profession for ever." f 

Taliessin avers that before him another still 
greater than he entered the otherworld (variously 
called Caer Sidi or Annwyn) and as a result be- 
came a primary bard. 

Stout was the prison of Gweir, in Caer Sidi. 
Through the spite of Pwyll and Pryderi; 
No one before him went into it. 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 247 

The heavy blue chain firmly held the youth, 

And before the spoils of Annwyn woefully he sang, 

And thenceforth till doom he shall remain a bard.* 

This Gweir, ravisher of the otherworld cauldron 
of inspiration, Rhys identifies with the great 
Gwydion, " the best story-teller in the world," of 
whom we read in the mabinogi of Math, a personage 
who, that learned scholar showed,t bears numerous 
resemblances to the Old Norse Odin (Woden). 

Odin, it will be remembered, was " the father 
of magic" (galdrs fg'&ur, aldinn gautr), able by val- 
galdr to conjure up the Sibyl from the depths. 
One reason stated for his being " the wisest of 
men " was because the dwarf Mimir gave him all 
good counsel; Odin had pawned his eye at the well 
beneath the tree Yggdrasill to secure the potion 
of wisdom. He and the seeress Saga are said to have 
drunk joyously out of golden cups at her abode of 
Sunk-bench, over which the cold waves ever 
murmur. { 

But Odin was reputed a poet, a god of poetry, 
and the explanation of his supernatural power in 
that direction is given by Snorri in the section of 
the prose Edda called Skaldskaparmdl, where vari- 
ous kennings for poesy are explained. The matter 
is obviously distorted, but the essential idea that 
poetic inspiration derives from a drink stolen from 
otherworld powers comes out clearly. 



248 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

Snorri represents the sea-god yEgir, " deeply 
versed in black magic," as inquiring of Bragi, " the 
first maker of poetry," the beginnings of his art, 
whereupon Bragi answers: * 

" These were the beginnings thereof: the gods 
had a dispute with the folk which are called Vanir, 
and they appointed a peace-meeting between them 
and established peace in this way: they each went 
to a vat and spat their spittle therein. Then at 
parting the gods took that peace-token and would 
not let it perish, but shaped thereof a man. This 
man is called Kvasir, and he was so wise that none 
could question him concerning anything but that 
he knew the solution. He went up and down the 
earth to give instruction to men; and when he 
came upon invitation to the abode of certain 
dwarfs, Fjallar and Galarr, they called him into 
privy converse with them, and killed him, letting 
his blood run into two vats and a kettle. The kettle 
is named Odrerir, and the vats Son and Bodn; 
they blended honey with the blood, and the out- 
come was that mead by the virtue of which he who 
drinks becomes a skald [poet] or scholar." 

Bragi goes on, with much circumstantial detail, 
to explain how the mead afterwards came into the 
possession of a giant Suttungr, who concealed it in 
a place called Hnitbjorg, leaving his daughter 
Gunnlod to watch over it. 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 249 

" Because of this we call poesy Kvasir's Blood, 
or Dwarfs' Drink, or Fill, or any kind of liquid of 
Odrerir, or of Bodn, or of Son, ... or Suttungr's 
Mead, or Liquor of Hnitbjorg." 

" Then ^Egir said: ' These seem to me dark say- 
ings, to call poesy by these names. But how did ye 
iEsir come at Suttungr's Mead ? ' Bragi answered: 
'That tale runs thus.' " And he proceeds to relate 
how Odin, under the name Bolverkr, by virtue of 
his power of changing his shape, reached Gunn- 
lod's dwelling and craftily obtained leave from her 
to drink three draughts of the mead. " In the first 
draught he drank every drop out of Odrerir; and 
in the second he emptied Bodn; and in the third. 
Son; and then he had all the mead. Then he turned 
himself into the shape of an eagle and flew as furi- 
ously as he could; but when Suttungr saw the 
eagle's flight, he too assumed the fashion of an 
eagle and flew after him.* When the iEsir saw Odin 
flying, straightway they set out their vats in the 
court; and when Odin came into Asgard, he spat 
up the mead into the vats. Nevertheless he came 
so near to being caught by Suttungr that he sent 
some mead backwards, and no heed was taken of 
this: whosoever would might have that, and we 
call that the poetaster's part.f But Odin gave the 
mead of Suttungr to the ^Esir and to those men who 
possess the ability to compose. Therefore we call 



250 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

poesy Odin's Booty and Find, and his Drink and 
Gift, and the Drink of the iEsir." 

This story savors strongly of Celtic fancy, and 
indeed may be directly derived from some lost 
fables of the West. The differentiation between the 
kettle and the two vats looks like a way of ex- 
plaining three kennings instead of one, not only 
the liquid of Odrerir (which means simply Inspira- 
tion), but also of Son and Bodn. To the Norse they 
were truly " dark sayings, to call poesy by these 
names"; but the Irish had stories connecting 
Boand and Seon with poetry (which fact I venture 
to suggest was the cause of the kennings), and like 
myths embodying their view that the otherworld 
was the source of all wisdom. As related above, 
Boand, wife of Nechtan and mother of Oengus, 
son of the Dagda, visited the secret well of faery, 
where grew the hazels of inspiration, and suffered 
a severe penalty for her ambition; * and in Irish 
the patron of artists was Seon the Philosopher, 
who is said to have known the nature of the plan- 
ets. In an old Welsh poem " the artists of Se Seon 
the Stately " are represented as seekers of ale.f 

In a Dinnsenchas J we have another story of a 
similar quest: " Sinend, daughter of Lodan Luch- 
arglan son of Ler, out of the Land of Promise, went 
to Connla's Well which is under sea to behold it. 
That is a well at which are the hazels of wisdom and 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 251 

inspirations, that is the hazels of the science of 
poetry, and in the same hour their fruit, and their 
blossom and their foHage break forth, and then fall 
upon the well in the same shower, which raises 
upon the water a royal surge of purple. . . . Now 
Sinend went to seek the inspiration, for she wanted 
nothing save only wisdom . . . but the well left 
its place . . . and overwhelmed her . . . and 
when she had come to the land on this side (of the 
Shannon) she tasted death." " In this remarkable 
legend," Nutt remarks,* " we have, if I mistake 
not, the most archaic Irish version, and one per- 
haps as archaic as found in the records of any 
Aryan people, of how the god world becomes man's 
world, or, to express it in the terms of the Hebrew 
myth, how evil and knowledge and death came 
into the world." 

Cuchulinn, moreover, was reputed to have made 
an expedition to Scath (Shade), where he won the 
king's cauldron,! and there are other cases where 
magic vessels are sought for in the nether region. 
The so-called cauldron of the Head of Hades had 
a ridge of pearls round its brim. It was kept boiling 
by the breath of nine maidens, and from it voices 
issued, t 

Rhys brings the Oriental god Indra into connec- 
tion with Gwydion and Odin as bringers to mortals 
of poetic stimulus. " With regard to wisdom and 



252 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

poetry he is the most sagacious of the wise, and the 
most skilled in song; he is called an old friend of 
the poets, and is not unfrequently associated with 
an ancient race of singers known by the name of 
Angiras; he has assumed the inspiration of proph- 
ets, and he can take all forms through his magic 
power." * In the Rig- Veda we read of Indra in 
eagle-form: "being well- winged, he carried to 
men the food tasted by the gods." f Indra makes 
rishis, wise men or poets, of those who have im- 
bibed soma, a drink parallel in Sanskrit to nectar 
and ambrosia in Greek myth. It is said to untie 
the poet's tongue. 

Celtic stories also exist where mortal visitors to 
the otherworld gain, not by force or fraud, but by 
fortune or favor, some precious possession which 
aflFects their nature, making it partake of the di- 
vine. One of the most interesting of these is the 
imram of Teigue, son of Cian,J who penetrated to 
Elysium, where he and his companions needed no 
nourishment and where a twelvemonth passed 
like a day. There a damsel, as wise as lovely, ac- 
quainted Teigue with the manner of his death, and 
his future, and then gave him a precious cup of 
emerald hue in which his life was bound up. This 
cup had wonderful attributes, one, reminding us 
of a Biblical miracle, that water poured into it 
would immediately become wine. 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 253 

It was here in a dun with a silver rampart that 
Teigue found Connla, and in his hand he held a 
fragrant apple having the hue of gold ; a third part 
of it he would eat, and still, for all he consumed, 
never a whit would it be diminished. Beside him 
was a lady of wondrous charm who had bestowed 
on him, she declared, " true affection's love," and 
therefore wrought to have him come to her in that 
land. And the apple " it was that supported the 
pair of them and, when once they had partaken of 
it, nor age nor dimness could affect them." She 
showed Teigue the marvellous apple tree in the 
dixn on which grew this virtuous fruit, and was told 
that a single apple had lured Connla to her. We 
can but think of Bragi, the Old Norse god of poetry, 
and how he had a wife Idun, who possessed the 
golden apples of immortality. 

Cormac, high-king of Ireland, grandson of Conn, 
also visited the Land of Promise, guided by a grey 
old messenger, who brought him a silver branch 
with three golden apples on it. " Delight and 
amusement enough it was to listen to the music 
made by that branch, for men sore wounded, or 
women in childbed, or folk in sickness, would fall 
asleep at the melody when that branch was 
shaken " — a fair symbol of the otherworld gift of 
music. When Cormac reaches alone the great plain 
of the land of immortality, " then he sees in the 



254 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

garth a shining fountain with five streams flowing 
out of it, and the hosts in turn a-drinking its water. 
Nine hazels of Buan grow over the well. The purple 
hazels drop their nuts into the fountain, and the 
five salmon which are in the fountain sever them, 
and send their husks floating down the streams. 
Now the sound of the falling of those streams is 
more melodious than any music that [men] sing." 
Cormac learns that the messenger who took him 
to the other world (as also previously his wife and 
children), and who sang him to sleep, was the 
great god of the Tuatha De Danann, Manannan 
Mac Lir, who, before he transported Cormac back 
to Tara, gave him not only the Silver Branch of 
song, but also a magic cup of truth. " Take the 
cup," he says to Cormac, " that thou mayest have 
it for discerning between truth and falsehood. And 
thou shalt have the Branch for music and delight. 
And on the day that thou shalt die they all will 
be taken from thee. I am Manannan, son of Ler, 
king of the Land of Promise; and to see the Land 
of Promise was the reason I brought [thee] hither. 
. . . The fountain which thou sawest, with the 
five streams out of it, is the Fountain of Knowl- 
edge, and the streams are the five senses through 
which knowledge is obtained (?). And no one will 
have knowledge who drinketh not a draught out 
of the fountain itself and out of the streams. The 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 255 

folk of many arts are those who drmk of them 
both." * 

Such a tale as that of Manannan's Well, the 
Fountain of Knowledge, is undoubtedly connected 
with the general pagan cult of sacred waters, and 
reminds us of the situation in Greece, 

Where each old poetic mountain 
Inspiration breath 'd around, 
Ev'ry shade and hallow'd fountain 
Mm-mur'd deep a solemn sound. 

Gray, it may be said, broad-visioned as he was, 
and better informed about Celtic and Scandinavian 
myth than most English writers, nevertheless 
turned his eyes most lovingly to classical antiquity 
when, emulating Pindar, he began his ode on The 
Progress of Poesy: 

Awake, Aeolian lyre! awake, 

And give to rapture all thy trembling strings. 

From Helicon's harmonious springs 

A thousand rills their mazy progress take. 

In general, so little has been known of British tradi- 
tions that but few rills have progressed into Eng- 
land's poet-land from the harmonious springs of 
faery, though these have been shown to be power- 
ful, for the same divine reason as the gleaming 
fancies of the Greeks, to evoke true rapture in the 

true bard. 

Apollo, Pallas, Jove, or Mercury 
Inspire me! 



^56 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

Modern English poets in infinite number, even 
Anglo-Celtic poets, have instinctively appealed for 
inspiration, like the noble Marcus, to Roman gods. 
But not so very long ago British bards turned to 
the underworld of their own imagining as the 
source of poetic inspiration, and the dark deity of 
that domain — be he called Bran, Urien, Pwyll, 
March, Math, or Arawn — was adored as a patron 
by Celtic minstrels and musicians. Certain gods in 
particular were called upon by bards for the favor 
of fortunate song. Ogyrven, owner of the cauldron, 
was deemed by them to have been the originator 
of their art. Ceridwen they long invoked in their 
artistic undertakings. Ogma Cermait (' the Honey- 
mouthed '), credited with the invention of the 
famous script ogam, was counted a god of elo- 
quence. Cairpre, his son, was reputed the first, and 
a magical, satirist. In Ireland Brigit, daughter 
of the Dagda, was honored as a goddess of poetry 
before her name became otherwise celebrated, as 
borne by a saint. Gwydion was exalted as the one 
who introduced into Wales the knowledge of let- 
ters. Like their classical counterparts, all these 
beings were at first feigned, but ultimately came, 
it would seem, to have so much reality to the pagan- 
minded that native Christian ecclesiastics strove 
to sink them without trace in an ocean of rebuke. 
Paganism still infected Celtic bards throughout 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 257 

the Middle Ages. In the fourteenth century the 
poet-priest Sion Kent attacked some as " Men of 
Hu," whose muse was the genius of lying, while on 
the other hand the Book of Taliessin resounds 
with scorn of the Christian school,* 

King James V of Scotland, in his tract on Dcemo- 
nologie,] dealing with " the fourth kind of spirits 
called the Phairie," points out how people even 
in his day claimed to have been transported 
through a hill to the otherworld, where they saw 
a faery queen and received from her a stone of 
virtuous power. After enumerating some of " the 
many vain trattles founded upon that illusion," 
he sagely concludes: "I think it liker Virgil's 
Campi Elysii nor anything that ought to be 
believed by Christians." Happily, being now 
untroubled by belief or unbelief in pagan concep- 
tions, we are glad to recognize that faery resem- 
bled the Elysian Fields, and we accompany old 
Celtic heroes thither with the same zest with which 
we follow iEneas and his companions, guided by 
the Cumaean Sibyl, to the " paradise of pleas- 
ances " that Virgil has made renowned. 

The Celtic tales of faery are, in truth, tales of an 
Elysium, for faery they present as " the land of 
the living heart," a land of healing and comfort, a 
land of noble sweet-sounding music, " that swells 
with choruses of hundreds — they look for neither 



258 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

decay nor death." There the blest inhabitants 
abridge the lazy time with delights of entertain- 
ment undreamt of on earth, while noble men of 
lore, untrammeled by fault of memory, gladly un- 
lock their word-hoards, and tell in perfect wise of 

Fierce war and faithful love, 

And Truth severe by fairy fiction drest. 

Favored mortals taken thither feel the enchant- 
ment of supernal music, and the spell of wondrous 
story, all in being shown mysteries beyond human 
understanding. 

Still, there is always a reverse side to the picture 
of such men, which we must have in mind if we 
would understand the mythical conception of " fine 
frenzy." If, after having actually visited faery, the 
elect of the deities were required to return to our 
world, they were always seen to retain a mark of 
their otherworld existence. Having literally learned 
by supernatural experience the rapture of supreme 
love, the ecstasy of far sight, the transport of su- 
perior knowledge, they were plainly set apart 
from the rest of mankind. Sad with unsatisfied 
longing, overwhelmed with grief because shut out 
from the land of heart's desire, they could not but 
seem solitary figures, in their own as in others' eyes. 
Their earthly companions may have pitied them, 
not fully comprehending the cause of their despair, 
but they inevitably esteemed them as links with 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 259 

the divine. By powers from above or below, it was 
believed, their memories had been stored with rich 
knowledge of the past, their faculties equipped 
with rich possessions of art and science for use in 
the present, their eyes opened to rich visions of the 
far future. In benefit of these memories, in service 
of these faculties, in the strength of second sight, 
such mortals so spake that they were accepted as 
guides by the people among whom they dwelt, 
even when, in eloquence or raving, they proclaimed 
what ordinary men did not grasp. " Tongue," 
Thomas the Rhymer explained, " is chief of min- 
strelsy." In faery the privileged gained *' the gift 
of tongues " on which St. Paul dwelt, with all the 
responsibility their inspiration implied, all the sad- 
ness, even madness, their election entailed. 

If perchance the visitants from the otherworld 
were only transients, called up unwillingly from 
the undiscovered country to give evidence of old 
faith, or reborn * with more than intimations of 
immortality, they seemed still more unique among 
men, unique in appearance as well as in endow- 
ment, " robed in the sable garb of woe " because 
disquieted in their abode, or rendered grave by the 
sense of sacred mysteries, yet gloried in as prophets 
and priests of the Most High! 

Plato asserts, on the authority of " certain wise 
men and women who spoke of things divine," that 



260 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

" in the ninth year Persephone sends the souls of 
those from whom she has received the penalty of 
ancient crime back again into the light of this 
world, and these are they who become noble kings 
and mighty men and surpassing in poetical skill, 
and are called saintly heroes in after ages." * 

Boccaccio, in his Life of Dante, after describing 
the poet's personal appearance and his melan- 
choly, thoughtful expression, goes on: "Hence it 
chanced one day in Verona (where the fame of his 
works had spread abroad everywhere, and es- 
pecially that part of his Comedy which he entitles 
Hell; and when he himself was known by sight to 
many, both men and women), that as he passed 
by a gateway where sat a group of women, one 
of them said to the others, softly, yet so that she 
was heard well enough by him and his company: 
* Do you see the man who goes to Hell, and comes 
again, at his pleasure; and brings tidings up here 
of them that be below ? ' To the which one of the 
others answered in all good faith: ' In truth it must 
needs be as thou sayest. See'st thou not how his 
beard is crisped and his skin darkened by the heat 
and smoke that are there below ? ' And hearing 
these words spoken behind him and perceiving that 
they sprang from the perfect belief of the women, he 
was pleased, and as though content that they should 
be of such opinion, he passed on, smiling a little." 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 261 

The most interesting feature of this passage is 
Dante's perception that the Veronese women spoke 
in all good faith and that their idea about his fre- 
quenting of Hell, and his power to bring up tidings 
thence to mortals, sprang from their perfect be- 
lief that such things could be. Whether from 
stories of previous happenings of the sort, or from 
primeval conceptions latent among them, they be- 
lieved that poets and seers might frequent the 
underworld and get inspiration there, and they 
expected this to show itself in outer abnormality. 

Some tales of otherworld journeys that resulted 
in inspiration undoubtedly originated in the com- 
mon pagan practice of consulting the oracles of the 
dead, or in initiatory rites, and these were particu- 
larly developed to embody ethical instruction. 
Such narratives as those of Plutarch concerning 
Aridaeus-Thespesius and Timarchus, the mediae- 
val visions of the hereafter, The Purgatory of St. 
Patrick and Owain Miles, were all used for moral 
or religious purpose. They are tales, not of meta- 
morphosis, like those we here first considered, but 
of metempsychosis, tales of inner change. The pro- 
tagonists, mortal from first to last, became men of 
distinction through personal katharsis, or purga- 
tion. In some cases only the disembodied soul made 
the journey, but the result was the same: when the 
soul returned to the body, the man's nature was 



262 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

altered and he had new powers as a guide, which 
his fellows acknowledged. As Maximus of Tyre 
said of Epimenides, who was reported to have fal- 
len into a deep sleep while guarding his flock by 
the cave of the Dictaean Zeus, a magic sleep last- 
ing fifty-seven years, during which he gained from 
the gods his extraordinary knowledge of religious 
matters: he had " a dream for his teacher." * 

The effect of such experiences was supposed to 
be manifest, not only in the knowledge and capac- 
ity, but in the manner and mien of the men who 
had undergone them. In particular it was said of 
neophytes who descended into the cave of Tro- 
phonius, saw the awe-inspiring sights there, and 
heard marvellous revelations, which were after- 
wards interpreted, that they never smiled again, 
and a proverb arose that persons of dejected as- 
pect had " consulted the oracle of Trophonius." f 

Mystery likewise attended the experiences of 
" men in Christ " who had visions of Paradise. J 
Such visions were not only awe-inspiring to the 
seers, but when noised about led to their being 
treated with awe. They felt themselves and were 
felt to be " the chosen vessels of God." 

It was not necessary, however, for mortals to 
journey in body or soul to the land of the deities 
to be inspired, for beings from the spirit-world, 
gods and angels, ancestors and daemons, it was 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 263 

declared, oft appeared to men as a mark of grace. 
The Bible is replete with such apparitions. Gideon 
was threshing wheat by the winepress when an 
angel appeared unto him, saying " The Lord is 
with thee, thou mighty man of valor," and bade 
him save Israel. He had " found grace " in God's 
sight, and was shown a sign. The spirit of the Lord 
came also upon Jephthah, the Gileadite, and more 
than once " moved " Samson mightily. When 
" the Word of the Lord came unto Elijah," he 
was empowered even to bring a child's soul back 
to his body.* 

Sometimes the appearance of an angel of the 
Lord to the elect brought on him a physical af- 
fliction, as when Zacharias was struck dumb, 
and Saul blind, thus to suffer until such time as 
Heaven granted them release. But more often they 
were merely overcome by emotion, which never- 
theless indicated to all observers that they were 
in the power of the spirit.f Their "possession" was 
not in character different from that which animated 
evil persons, for devils too entered into men and 
could not be cast out save by superior authority. 
Not only Simeon, following the revelation of the 
Holy Spirit, but " a man which had a spirit of an 
unclean devil," witnessed to Jesus's being the 
Holy One of God. Not only angels from on high, 
but " devils also came out of many crying out, and 



264 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God." No one 
who saw Jesus's miracles questioned His inspira- 
tion. He wrought, as He claimed, " in the power of 
the Spirit"; yet Jews maintained that the spirit 
within Him was a devil. According to the New 
Testament, the life of the Christian was to be an 
inspired life; but he must be ever on his guard 
against evil possession. " Beloved," said John, 
" believe not every spirit, but try the spirits 
whether they are of God: because many false 
prophets are gone out into the world." * 

Long ago in mediaeval Britain, scholars an- 
ticipated the modern comparative method of 
studying religion as well as literature, and had 
their materials been more extensive they would 
have advanced far. Very suggestively Giraldus 
Cambrensis f speculated on the subject of sooth- 
saying, and brought the Awennithion (Awenyd- 
dion) or " people inspired," the prophets of Wales, 
into connection with Greek as well as Hebrew 
prophets. In Merlin, of course, Giraldus was par- 
ticularly interested, though he could hardly doubt 
that he spoke by a pythonic or diabolic spirit. 
" We read," he says, " the prophecies of Merlin, 
but hear nothing of his sanctity or his miracles." 
Merlin and Ambrosius, who " are said to have 
foretold the destruction of their nation as well as 
the coming of the Saxons, and afterwards that of 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY ^5 

the Normans," he compared with Calchas and Cas- 
sandra, who foretold the destruction of Troy. His 
highly significant remark, " These prophets are 
only found among the Britons descended from the 
Trojans," though it presupposes belief in the fable 
of Brut exploited by Geoffrey of Monmouth, 
nevertheless indicates an acute perception of cog- 
nate ideas. 

Boethius was careful to distinguish between 
prescience and " absurd " vaticinations like those 
of Tiresias.* Dante put Amphiaraus and other 
diviners of antiquity, along with Michael Scot, in 
hell.t Certain of the Church Fathers proscribed 
pagan works because they might be vessels, as 
Augustine indicated, containing " the wine of 
error," or, as Jerome put it, " the food of demons "| 
— phrases reminiscent of materialistic myths. 
Bacon was impressed by these phrases but thought 
them severe and undiscriminating.§ 

The fourteenth-century English mystic Walter 
Hilton warned his countrymen that the devil could 
enter into a man and by false illuminations over- 
travail his imagination. " And then, for feeble- 
ness of the brain, him thinketh that he heareth 
wonderful sounds and songs; and that is nothing 
else but a fantasy, caused of troubling of the brain; 
as a man that is in a frenzy, him thinketh that he 
heareth and seeth that none other man doth; and 



266 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

all is but vanity and fantasies of the head, or else it 
is by working of the wicked enemy that feigneth 
such sounds in his hearing." * Shakespeare makes 
Mercutio speak in similar phrase of dreams 

Which are the children of an idle brain 
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy.f 

" What spirit, what devil suggests this imagina- 
tion ? " asks Page in Merry Wives. t 

Tylor points out that we owe our terms demo- 
niac, exorcist, epilepsy, nympholepsy (the state of 
being seized or possessed by a nymph) to the Greek 
for good reason. " The causation of mental de- 
rangement and delirious utterance by spiritual 
possession was an accepted tenet of Greek phi- 
losophy. To be insane was simply to have an evil 
spirit, as when Socrates said of those who denied 
demonic or spiritual knowledge, that they them- 
selves were demoniac, ... So the Romans called 
madmen ' larvati,' ' larvarum pleni,' full of ghosts. 
Patients possessed by demons stared and foamed, 
and the spirits spoke from within them by their 
voices. The craft of the exorcist was well known. 
As for oracular possession, its theory and practice 
remained in fullest vigour through the classic 
world, scarce altered from the times of lowest 
barbarism. Could a South Sea Islander have gone 
to Delphi to watch the convulsive struggles of the 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 267 

Pythia, and listen to her raving, shrieking utter- 
ances, he would have needed no explanation what- 
ever of a rite so absolutely in conformity with his 
own savage philosophy." 

" The general doctrine of disease-spirits and 
oracle-spirits appears to have its earliest, broadest, 
and most consistent position within the limits of 
savagery." Among savage tribes " madmen are 
to be treated with great respect, as entered by a 
god, and idiots owe the kindness with which they 
are appeased and coaxed to the belief in their su- 
perhuman inspiration. Here, and elsewhere in the 
lower culture, the old real belief has survived which 
has passed into a jest of civilized men in the famous 
phrase of the ' inspired idiot.' " * 

Our romantic notions of inspired idiots, like those 
of blind bards, it is important to recognize, are 
ultimately based on primitive beliefs, a fact which 
is no doubt primarily responsible for their enduring 
life. But that life has clearly been prolonged by 
great writers, who have ever lovingly renewed con- 
sideration of mythical beings made mad or blind 
by divine agency. We have already seen how Plato 
treated the blindness of Homer. He was still more 
interested in the question of fine frenzy, or, to use 
his own words, " divine release from the ordinary 
ways of men," and in the Phaedrus he indicates 
the gods who were supposed to preside over such 



268 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

madness in its different manifestations; " pro- 
phetic " madness was the inspiration of Apollo, 
" initiatory " that of Dionysus, " poetic " that of 
the Muses, and " erotic " that of Aphrodite and 
Eros. 

The Celts told of inspired madmen of each of 
these types, though, no more than actually among 
the Greeks, were they kept apart. The Irish fdith, 
a prophet or poet, is cognate to the Latin vates, 
and apparently akin to the Old Norse otSr, mind, 
soul, song, the English wod, mad, and the German 
Wuth, rage. The Celts believed that a man who un- 
derwent hardship on Cader Idris or Snowdon 
would be inspired as a bard; but he might become 
a madman, that is to say, the inspiration might 
prove different from that of the bard. The idiot of 
the family plays the part of a prophet in the Irish 
story concerning the formation of Lough Neagh.* 
Comgan, son of the King of the Decies in Munster, 
we read, was made mad by a druid's flinging a 
magic wisp over him and pronouncing a spell. 
" There he wasted away in body, his mind decayed, 
his hair fell off; and ever afterwards he wandered 
about the palace, a bald drivelling idiot. But he had 
lucid intervals, and then he became an inspired 
poet, and uttered prophecies; so that he is known 
in the legendary literature as Mac-da-cerda, the 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 269 

' youth of the two arts,' that is to say, poetry and 
fooHshness." * 

Such stories may depend ultimately on actual 
manifestations of real or apparent frenzy connected 
with Druidic initiation rites and magic spells. f 
The Druids were esteemed as holy prophets, 
sacred interpreters of the gods' decrees, and de- 
livered their messages in, or as if in, a trance. But 
the stories themselves perpetuated the idea of a 
connection between poetry and foolishness (lun- 
acy) which was credited long after any such phys- 
ical basis for it was conceivable, this idea being 
supported by the natural sense of mystery aroused 
to this day by the sight of any one abnormal. 

The general belief of antiquity was expressed in 
Cicero's words " Nemo vir magnus sine aliquo 
adflatu divino umquam fuit." Aristotle inquired 
why " all who have excelled in philosophy, states- 
manship, poetry, or the arts are of a melancholy 
temperament"; and Seneca misquoted him: "Nul- 
lum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae 
fuit." Dry den echoed the idea: 

Great wits are sure to madness near allied 
And thin partitions do their bounds divide. J 

We are here interested particularly in the inspira- 
tion of " great wits," but we must not overlook 
that of lovers, whose form of madness was formerly 
held to be but another sign of divine or daemonic 



270 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

possession; and not, indeed, unnaturally, for the 
marks are much the same, and it is only when in 
love, as we say, with a subject, as with a person, 
that men, as we say, act like fools, scorning 
(earthly) delights and living laborious days, to 
attain the purely intangible joys of new knowl- 
edge or experience. 

Among the daemons that inspire men, Plato put 
Eros,* and Shakespeare preludes Theseus' words 
already quoted by the following lines: 

I never may believe 
These antique fables, nor these Fairy toys. 
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, 
Such shaping phantasies, that apprehend 
More than cool reason ever comprehends. 
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, 
Are of imagination all compact. 
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold: 
That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic. 
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt. 

There has always seemed something magical, 
something beyond human law, in the emotions of 
a lover, and this conception has always been for- 
tified by old story. In Celtic as in Greek myth, 
otherworld persons, regularly presented as amor- 
ous, had peculiar power to excite love-madness. 
Passionate love was thought to be superinduced 
by mysterious agencies, as by a potion in the story 
of Tristram and Ysolt, but particularly through 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 271 

music. The harping of the bard Glasgerion made 
ladies wax mad with desire. The harp of Angus 
mac Oc, the GaeHc Eros, produced such sweet 
music that no one could hear and not follow it. 
And it was the enchanting music of the fairies 
Liban and Fand, in the form of swans, which made 
the men of Erin fall into a deep sleep, while they 
overwhelmed the great Cuchulinn with love- 
frenzy, from which Conchobar's druid alone could 
cure him by giving him a drink of forgetfulness.* 
Cuchulinn's wife Emer had to seek these means 
to expel her husband's fairy-mistress, of whom 
she was jealous. Even so Guinevere in a fit of 
jealousy on account of Elayne, also originally a 
fairy, banished Lancelot, whereupon he went out of 
his mind and was not healed until Elayne nursed 
him in the Joyous Isle, where he was found after 
many years by Sir Hector and Sir Perceval, and 
persuaded to return to Arthur's court.f Such 
heroes had " seething brains." They longed to re- 
enter the Plain of Pleasure, where their loves 
dwelt in bliss. 

Numerous instances, indeed, occur in Arthurian 
romance of a mortal frantic because separated 
from the otherworld lady with whom he had once 
enjoyed life, either on earth like Lanval, or in 
faery like Yvain. It was a dame d' amour who 
bleared the eye of Libeaus Desconus,J the brave 



m CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

son of Gawain, with a succession of " shaping 
phantasies," finally transported him from her air- 
castle, the Golden Isle, and left him alone to lan- 
guish in despair, until he was discovered by old 
comrades and brought back to the association of 
the Table Round. Such dames d'amour always in- 
finitely transcend mortal ladies in beauty, and 
heroes under their spell grow suddenly so mad with 
love for them that ordinary women seem innocent 
of charm. Shakespeare pictures Cleopatra, " Ser- 
pent of old Nile," with the characteristics of a 
stately faery queen, and makes Antony, all as 
frantic as a madman, see " Helen's beauty in a 
brow of Egypt." On the other hand, he could im- 
agine a faery queen of a different sort, the tiny 
Mab galloping through lovers' brains, so that they 
dreamt of love. 

It is significant that Shakespeare should join 
antique fables with fairy toys (trifles) dealing with 
love-frenzy, for there was, as he recognized, fun- 
damental likeness between them. Irish fairy toys 
like the Wooing of Etain were felt to be so similar 
to the antique fable of Orpheus and Eurydice that 
the otherworld conceptions they embody were 
fused with it by the author of the Breton lay of 
which we have an English version called Sir 
Orfeo* It is strangely true that " Orpheus' lute 
was strung with poets' sinews." If " the poet did 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 273 

feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones," etc., it was 
because he was a great mythmaker, apprehending, 
what reason could not comprehend, conditions in 
the unseen world, the home of minstrelsy. 

Theseus began his famous speech with the words 
" more strange than true." The truth of the be- 
liefs in inspired madness does not here concern us. 
This is not a treatise on pathology but on poesy, 
not on heredity with respect to corporeal disease 
but with respect to spiritual imagination. Great 
poets, it is too often overlooked, are the heirs of 
one another in all the ages, and hand down in a 
sort of apostolic succession the faith of the elect. 
Hippolyta closed Theseus' discussion with words 
which may well be applied to poets' thoughts on 
inspiration: 

All their minds transfigur'd so together. 
More witnesseth than fancy's images, 
And grows to something of great constancy; 
But, howsoever, strange and admirable. 

" The truest poetry is most feigning," * and tempts 
poets ever to new feigning along the lines of old 
suggestion. " The Muse," says Plato, " first gives 
to men inspiration herself; and from these inspired 
persons a chain of other persons is suspended, who 
take the inspiration from them. For all good poets, 
epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems 
not as works of art, but because they are inspired 



274 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

and possessed. And as the Corybantian revellers 
when they dance are not in their right mind, so the 
lyric poets are not in their right mind when they 
are composing their beautiful strains; but when 
falling under the power of music and metre they 
are inspired and possessed; like Bacchic maidens 
who draw milk and honey from the rivers when 
they are under the influence of Dionysus, but 
not when they are in their right mind. And the 
soul of the lyric poet does the same, as they them- 
selves tell us; for they tell us that they gather their 
strains from honied fountains out of the gardens 
and dells of the Muses; thither, like the bees, they 
wing their way. And this is true. For the poet is a 
light and winged and holy thing, and there is no 
invention in him until he has been inspired and 
out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him : 
when he has not attained to this state, he is power- 
less and is unable to utter his oracles. . . . God 
takes away the minds of poets, and uses them as 
his ministers, as he also uses diviners and holy 
prophets, in order that we who hear them may 
know that they speak not of themselves who utter 
these priceless words in a state of unconsciousness, 
but that God is the speaker, and that through 
them he is conversing with us. . . . The poets are 
only the interpreters of the gods by whom they 
are severally possessed."* 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 275 

From the times when earliest recorded, myths 
have been treated as allegories. Plato saw the 
danger in the practice, but nevertheless indulged 
in it himself. Only he did not, as many stupid 
people have done since, transform them into some- 
thing different from what they were. He upheld 
them as poetry, not as science, as feigning not as 
fact, thus reinvoking the imaginative daemon to 
whom they owed their first creation. There is 
nothing good to be said for the euhemerization or 
rationalization of myth, very little for its use to 
teach pedestrian morals; but the allegorization of 
myth, as Plato, Dante and other poetic thinkers 
have shown, may be profitable, as the myth in 
the beginning was profitable, in arousing men to a 
new sense of the mystery of the universe, in awak- 
ing oftener that dream-consciousness which is the 
best basis of transcendental emotion. Antique 
myth may even surpass to our advantage its 
primal importance if adorned by a great poetic, 
far-seeing mind. 

In the belief of antiquity, every man had a 
genius, a tutelary demon, who was born with him, 
and there is sanction for other types of attendant 
genii in the mythology of Eastern nations. Gradu- 
ally the word genius came to mean a quality that 
characterizes men of exceptional power, a capacity 
that cannot be acquired by education, an endow- 



276 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

ment inexplicable on any ground of natural law. 
And a genius is now a person who stands apart 
from his fellows by some sort of divine right. For a 
considerable time, however, genius has been used 
by critics to denote a difference in grade among 
writers and taken to define a special degree of orig- 
inality. Particularly from the eighteenth century 
on, it has been customary to contrast poets of 
genius with poets of talent, or parts, or learning, 
the former having " original unindebted energy " 
which might manifest itself supremely even in men 
who could neither read nor write. " A genius,''^ 
said Edward Young, " differs from a good under- 
standing as a magician from a good architect; that 
raises his structure by means invisible; this by the 
skilful use of common tools." " Learning we thank, 
genius we revere; That gives us pleasure. This 
gives us rapture; That informs. This inspires; and 
is itself inspired; for genius is from heaven, learn- 
ing from man." "An inventive genius .... like 
the widow's cruse, is divinely replenished from 
within, and affords us a miraculous delight." * 

Though scientific efforts are being made nowa- 
days to link up genius with ordinary insanity,! 
what we fundamentally mean by distinctive and 
distinguishing genius, closely connected as it is 
with beliefs in inspiration, is as much a mystery 
to us as to the mythmakers of old. And even to- 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 277 

day — this point needs emphasis — the language 
of critics regarding the same basic phenomena is 
largely determined by the mythic presentations 
of antiquity. We still constantly repeat in our 
discussion of authors words and phrases that 
properly connote primitive beliefs. Our books on 
poesy are shot through with terms implying notions 
set forth in myth. 

We talk glibly to-day about the gifts of men of 
distinction. But a gift implies a giver; ancient 
myths told about benevolent deities who gave to 
them they favored. Our teachers and creative art- 
ists feel a call to their undertakings. Ancient myths 
told of embodied spirits or mysterious voices call- 
ing to mortals and bidding them speak, or write, 
or otherwise labor, with promise of success. Poets 
at least still cling to belief (feigned or true) in 
oracles, the old faith (as ever) moulding the expres- 
sion of their thought.* We are prone to say that the 
works of sublime poets are a revelation, thinking of 
the visions of ancient worthies and the Apocalypse 
of St. John. Our great, we say, have peculiar in- 
sight, suggesting that their eyes have been opened 
by unusual experience. They have special endow- 
ment, or exalted enthusiasm, words which imply 
the indwelling of a god. They have inspiration, 
which shows that a deity has breathed into them 
the breath of poetic life. 



278 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

So it is with the words that are regularly used to 
express heights of emotion and transcendental 
feeling — ecstasy, rapture, transport — qualities of 
poets whom we call celestial, heavenly, divine, 
poets who " ride upon seraph-wings," have voices 
" as of the cherub-choir," " speak the language of 
the gods." 

If by predilection poets are pagan in fancy, they 
still invoke the inspiration of gods and muses, or 
perhaps the Mighty Mother, who. Gray imagined, 
did unveil her awful face to " the dauntless child," 
our greatest bard, and gave him gifts — golden 
keys, to ope the gates of joy and horror.* We 
lightly use phrases of sometime deep import when 
we talk of the " fount of wisdom," the " well of 
understanding," "the sacred source of sympathetic 
tears "; but we do not balk at the connotation of 
such phrases when it occurs to us, for we have 
long accustomed ourselves to their sound, and, in 
truth, the ways to obtain " the vision and the 
faculty divine " have varied little throughout the 
ages, no matter in what dispensation of the faith. 
The past and present in this matter notably join. 
Platonism and mysticism have linked hands for 
better for worse. f 

The pious author of The Christian Year de- 
scribes as a primary bard him who writes " for the 
most part from the impulse of his own passion," 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 279 

stating that he who as a rule writes otherwise is 
secondary, "howsoever superior in talent, weight- 
ier in theme, or more splendid in diction he may 
be." And to make his views clearer, he goes back 
willingly (as what Christian poet does not ?) "to 
the very infancy of the divine art " to see " what 
we may learn both from its intrinsic meaning and 
from the traditions of antiquity as to its origin." 

After alluding to Horace's statement * that 
Democritus excluded from Helicon all poets in 
their senses, Plato's proposals for similar enact- 
ments, and Shakespeare's classing together of the 
lunatic, the lover, and the poet, Keble sets forth 
his view that only one who can skilfully and force- 
fully use perfect imitation, and exquisite harmony 
of subject and expression, as a means to give healing 
and relief, is to be called a poet.f 

Keble, thus speaking, almost seems to be a son 
of Taliessin, for the bards who composed poems in 
the name of their mythical ancestor held similar 
views, though with far more inclination to divinity 
as shaping the ends of poetic impulse. " I deride 
neither song nor ministrelsy," said the author of 
one of these poems, " for they are given by God to 
lighten thought." In other songs thus put into the 
mouth of Taliessin appears prominently the view 
of the primary bard as one who had been mysteri- 
ously taught hidden art and wisdom. Administer- 



280 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

ing a rebuke to the wisest of the court poets of 
Maelgwn who ventured to strive with him, he 
exclaims : 

Be silent, then, ye unlucky rhyming bards. 

For you cannot judge between truth and falsehood. 

If you be primary bards formed by heaven. 

Tell your king what his fate will be. 

It is I who am a diviner and a leading bard. 

And he proceeds to prophesy what shall befall the 
king. 

Taliessin alone is the diviner, he alone is able to 
tell the truth, because he has visited the under- 
world, the very home of poetic inspiration, and is 
" completely imbued with genius not to be con- 
trolled." * 

I have been fostered in the land of the Deity, 

I have been teacher to all intelligences, 

I am able to instruct the whole imiverse, 

I shall be until the day of doom on the face of the earth; 

And it is not known whether my body is flesh or fish. 

Taliessin might be called the personification of 
Great Poesy, for it remains like him " a wonder 
whose origin is not known," and it ought to be 
clear by now that, whether its body be flesh or 
fish, due to inspiration or imitation, its soul de- 
rives, according to old faith, from the land of the 
Deity, where the first fathers of British verse were 
fostered. 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 281 

When the Bard was asked whether he was man 

or spirit, " he sang this tale, and said: 

First I have been formed a comely person. 
In the court of Ceridwen I have done penance; 
Though Uttle I was seen, placidly received, 
I was great on the floor of the place to where I was led ; 
I have been a prized defence, the sweet muse the cause. 
And by law without speech I have been liberated 
By a smiling black old hag, when irritated 
Dreadful her claim when pursued." 

We are far from knowing the full import of this 
myth of the culture quest, but we may without 
harm spiritualize it into a symbol of the quests of 
our own poets who after anxious striving have 
gained great reward. If the bards of old suffered in 
attaining a poetic and prophetic soul, they never- 
theless exulted in its possession. It is the same to- 
day. The afflicted Milton knew but one answer to 
his question: 

Who would lose, 
Though full of pain, this intellectual being, 
Those thoughts that wander through eternity. 
To perish rather, swallow'd up and lost 
In the wide womb of uncreated night .'* 

Milton, nevertheless, like many another poet 
before and since, magnified the function of his 
kind. The bard, he proclaims, " shall be like a priest 
shining in sacred vestment, washed with lustral 
waters, who goes up to make augury before the 



282 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

jealous gods. . . . Yea, for the bard is sacred to 
the gods: he is their priest. Mysteriously from his 
lips and breast he breathes Jove." * " Poets," said 
Shelley, with like transport, " are the hierophants 
of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of 
the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the 
present." 

Though both these great writers may have had 
to struggle against a tendency to martyrize them- 
selves, they were without question " inspired," in 
the true sense. But what shall we say of the nu- 
merous puny bards who have willingly abandoned 
themselves to the infatuation of self-centrement 
and sneeringly blamed the world for its (usually 
justified) indifference to them, because forsooth 
they are poets, therefore in the nature of things 
inspired beyond artists in other domains, and alone 
supremely capable of seeing visions and dreaming 
dreams ? 

Sheer devilish deceit, it would seem, afflicts the 
souls of modern poets who, presumptously imagin- 
ing themselves geniuses and indulging in vain 
fantasies of their own importance, work them- 
selves up into indiscreet fury over the world's neg- 
lect. The inspiration of such egotists differs as 
widely from that of the genuinely endowed as the 
melancholy of Jaques from that of Dante.t The 
truly holy prophets and poets through whom God 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 283 

has chosen to speak since the world began, have 
not been so much occupied with their own misery 
as with that of the nations they sought to aid, 
have not been conceitedly petulant about being 
misunderstood for what this meant to them, but 
nobly solicitous because of their failure to convey 
their message potently, as instruments of the com- 
mon profit, for what it meant to others. 

Perhaps we have a symptom of the modern 
" dulcet disease " of romanticism in Shelley's 
words : 

Most wretched men 
Are cradled into poetry by wrong; 
They learn in suffering what they teach in song.* 

But there was more than that in the ancient concep- 
tions of " the disease that precedes the power to 
divine." Magnificent myths are based upon the idea 
of heroic, self -immolating human struggle for heav- 
enly possessions with which to benefit mankind. 

Among the myths destined to live forever is that 
of Prometheus' theft and transmission of the fire of 
the Immortals, if only because it is " full of prompt- 
ings and suggestions " to modern as to ancient 
poets themselves aglow with " the divine fire." 

All is but a symbol painted 

Of the Poet, Prophet, Seer; 
Only those are crowned and sainted 
Who with grief have been acquainted. 

Making nations nobler, freer. 



284 CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 

In an ancient Irish colloquy regarding the 

source of poetic inspiration,* the Young Poet, 

" wrapped in the robe of splendor," who comes 

" from the meeting-place of wisdom, from the 

place where goodness dwells serene, from the red 

sunrise of the dawn, where grow the nine hazels of 

poetic art," tells in symbol to the Old Poet, 

" Master of Wisdom," who moves " along the 

streams of inspiration " " into the lofty heights of 

honor, into the community of knowledge, into the 

fair country inhabited of noble sages, into the 

haven of prosperities " — the true pedigree of 

Poesy : 

Poetry son of Investigation, 
Investigation son of Meditation, 
Meditation son of Lore, 
Lore son of Research, 
Research son of Inquiry, 
Inquiry son of wide Knowledge, 
Knowledge son of Good Sense, 
Good Sense son of Understanding, 
Understanding son of Wisdom, 
Wisdom son of the three Gods of Poetry, 

Who now can declare it better ? Ultimately, 
Poesy descends from the gods. 

Has there been progress in our conceptions of 
poesy ? Plainly, we have still, even in this age of 
science, but at the dawn, let us hope, of an age of 
larger apprehension, an ineradicable sense of real 



CONCEPTIONS OF POESY 285 

divinity in genius, that divinity which, as lambli- 
chus long ago observed, " seizes for the time the 
soul and guides it as he will." 

Great Poesy, we conclude, is the ever-living 
teacher to all intelligences, because by miracle 
heaven-bred. 



NOTES 



NOTES 

CHAPTER I 

Page h. *Edinburgh and London, 1887, 1, 173 ff. 

Fage 6. * Autobiography. To Dr. Moore, 2d August, 1787; 
Works, ed. Douglas, IV, 7. 

Page 6. f" Thirty-eight editions during a period of about 380 
years sufficiently attest the uncommon popularity of the 
poem in Scotland " (J. T. T. Brown, The Wallace and the 
Bruce Restudied, Bonner Beitrdge zur Anglistik, 1900, p. 2). 
For a complete list of the editions, with other bibliography, 
see William Geddie, A Bibliography of Middle Scots Poets, 
S. T. S., 1912, pp. 133 ff. 

Page 8. *G. L. Craik, Compendious History of English Litera- 
ture, London, 1861, I, 387. 

Page 9. * Scottish Revieic, July, 1893, XXII, 200 f. 

Page 10. *0p. ciL, pp. 77 ff. 

Page 10. fYet John Marquess of Bute, in 1876, suggested that 
" some clerk " may have had to do with the arrangement of 
the matter of the poem. In his Early Days of Sir William 
Wallace (p. 13), he writes of the author: " All his informa- 
tion had to get to him by means of other persons, and his 
digest of it had to reach the reading public by the same 
means. I do not know if any instance exists of a man born 
blind mastering a dead language; but if ever it did, it can 
hardly have done so in the fifteenth century, so that the 
poet was almost certainly dependent on a translator also. 
No doubt, the poem was also composed in scraps, and so 
written down. We know that he recited it publicly, and he 
was no doubt in the habit of choosing for this purpose those 
portions which he thought best adapted to each particular 

289 



290 NOTES 

occasion or audience. Hence, the work is to he viewed rather 
as a series of stories abovt Sir William Wallace, told in verse 
and strung together with a rough attempt at chronological ar- 
rangement by some clerk. I am inclined to hope that, next 
to some absolute mis-statements, its worst fault may be in 
the chronological arrangement." 

In his long article on " Henry the Minstrel " in the Dic- 
tionary of National Biography, Dr. ^neas Mackay remarks: 
" The poet speaks in his own person at its [the work's] close, 
and may have dictated it to the transcriber. His vivid 
descriptions have been thought by some incompatible with 
total blindness, but Major's statement, the best evidence 
on the point, would be confirmed by his using another 
hand to write his poem." 

Page 10. |It has been shown that the manuscript written by 
Ramsay was not the author's original copy. See Aschauer, 
Zur " Wallace "-Frage, in Beitrdge zur Neueren Philologie, 
Festschrift fUr Jakob Schipper, Vienna and Leipzig, 1902, 
pp. 132-145; G. Ncilson, Athenaeum, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 
647; Neilson, Essays and Studies, I, 86, note; Athenaeum, 
Feb. 9, 1901, pp. 170-171; T. F. Henderson, Englische 
Studien, XXX, 281 ff. Mr. Brown himself now apparently 
sets less store by his theory. In a letter to the Athenaeum 
(Nov. 24, 1900, p. 68.'J) he writes: "The whole chapter, in- 
deed, is a digression from the main question, viz., the rela- 
tion of the Wallace and the Bruce to each other and to 
kindred literature." 

Page 10. §For example, R. B. McKcrrow {Modern Language 
Quarterly, V, 73-76); W. Hand Browne {Modern Language 
Notes, XVI, 50-54). 

Page 11. *Third revised edition, Edinburgh, 1910, pp. GQ ff. 

Page 12. *"0n Blind Harry's Wallace," Essays and Studies by 
Members of the English Association, I, Oxford, 1910, pp. 85, 
87. 

Page IS. fDeposited in the Harvard College Library. With 
this dissertation before them. Professors W. A. Neilson and 



NOTES 291 

K. G . T. Webster, the editors of ChieJ British Poets of the 
nth and 15th Centuries (Boston, 1916, p. 433), conclude: 
" It is on the whole safer to consider the authorsliip doubt- 
ful." 

CHAPTER II 

Page H. *It may be that there was a rubric in the original 
manuscript (Ramsay's is only a copy) indicating the name 
of the author, or there may have been a passage at the end 
which is now lost. 

The Wallace was printed, it appears, as early as ca. 1508. 
David Laing (Preface to his edition of Golagros and Gaivane) 
describes some fragments of a copy of this edition; but they 
have been lost. 

Page 14. ^Uistoria Majoris Britanniae (De Gestis Scotorum), 
Paris, 1521; Edinburgh, 1740; trans. A. Constable (Pubs. 
Scottish Hist. Soc, Vol. X, Edinburgh, 1892), Bk. IV, 
ch. XV, p. 205. 

Page 14- XThe History and Chronicles of Scotland, Edinburgh, 
1821. 

Page U. §Ed. Turnbull, Record Series, III, 161-162. 

Page 15. *He was born in 1469-70 at Gleghornie, near North 
Berwick. He died in 1549-50. 

Page 16. *Introduction to Constable's translation, pp. Ixiv, 
Ixxxiv. 

Page 17. *For Major's discussion of Robin Hood, see Bk. IV, 
ch. ii. 

Page 17. fCf. Neilson, p. 107. 

Page 18. *The Latin here reads: ** Integrum librum Guillelmi 
Vallacei Henricus a nativitate luminibus captus meae in- 
fantiae tempore cudit, et quae vulgo dicebantur carmine 
vulgari in quo peritus erat conscripsit (ego autem taUbus 
scriptis solum in parte fidem impertior) qui historiarum 
recitatione coram principibus victum et vestitum quo dig- 
nus erat nactus est " (Lib. IIII, Fo. LXXIII). 



292 NOTES 

Page 19. *It should be noticed that critics have read into 
Major's words more than there is any basis for. Consciously 
or unconsciously, all have encouraged the similitude to 
Homer that he started. 

Page 20. *See Constable's translation, Index. 

Page 20. fTo avoid any appearance of warping it to fit the 
case, I give it in the words of Gayley {Classic Myths, Boston, 
1911, pp. 451-452). 

Page 20. J" Like Hannibal or Ulysses he understood to draw 
up an army in order of battle, while like another Tela- 
monian Ajax he could carry on the fight in open field " (IV, 
14, p. 196). " The poets have fabled that Achilles was 
brought up on the muscles of oxen, and not on partridges 
or pheasants. And WilUam Wallace, as our chronicles have 
it, used to call for that part of oxen which they call the nine- 
plies, and not for partridges or pheasants " (In Quartum 
Sententiarum, cited Constable, p. 195, note). 

Page 21. *II, 6. 

Page 21. fVI, 14, p. 366. 

Page 22. *IV, 11; pp. 184-185. 

Page 22. fl, 9. 

Page 22. ^According to Boece, this event took place B.C. 330. 
Canemor is probably for Teamor, the Themor of Fordun, 
now Temair, Tara. When Fordun gives the pedigree of 
King David (tll53), he traces it back, via Iber Scot and 
Gaythelos, to Gomer, Japhet and Noah (ed. Skene, 1872, 
II, 244 £F.). See Wallace, I, 121 fif. 

Page 22. §See Skene's Highlanders of Scotland, ed. Macbain, 
1902, pp. 178-188. 

Page 23. *The editor notes: " All attempts to identify Conus 
have failed," and states his belief that it is a scribal error. 
On Conn, see below, ch. v. 



NOTES 293 

Page S3. fCf. Small's edition of Dunbar, I, ccxliii. In the 
Treasurer's Accounts of the years 1491-1506 are various 
items showing the interest of royalty in the Erse clareshaws 
and harpers. About 1490, Angus, son of John, last Lord of 
the Isles, was slain by his own harper. 

Page 23. |Ed. Amours, Scottish Alliterative Poems, S.T.S., 
1897, pp. 74, 312 f. The passage ends: 

O Deremyne, O Donnall, O Dochardy droch; 

Thir ar his Irland kingis of the Irischerye: 

O Knewlyn, O Conochor, O Gregre Makgrane; 

The Schenachy, the Clarschach, 

The Ben schene, the Ballach, 

The Crekery, the Corach, 

Scho kennis thaim ilkane. 

Blind Harry knew better than we who these persons 
were, and " kenned each one " — the sennachie, the clare- 
shaw, the banshee, and the rest. For Campbell's interpre- 
tation of the passage, see Brown, p. 32. 

Blind Harry pictures an English soldier as accosting 
Wallace with an ironical GaeUc salutation in which some of 
the same phrases occur (Bk. VI, 1. 140). Cf. Brown, pp. 31- 
32. Many of Wallace's followers were from the Highlands. 

Page 23. %Poems, ed. Cranstoun, p. 220. A poem attributed 
to Montgomery (p. 280) explains 

How the first Helandman of God was maid 
Of ane horss turd, in Argylle, as is said. 

Page 24. *L1. 345ff. Dunbar derides Kennedy, of Ayrshire, 
as a mere countryman, whose lips could blabber only the 
" Ershry." He makes the Dwarf of the Interlude say: 

Yrland for evir I haif reffusit, 
All wyismen will hald me excusit. 
For nevir in land quhair Eriche was vsit. 
To dwell had I dellyte. (LI. 109flF.) 

Page 24. fEd. Small, p. 121, 11. 113flf. 

Page 25. *Monarchie, Bk. 1, 11. 327-329. 



294 NOTES 

CHAPTER III 

Page 26. *Ed. J. Schipper, TJie Poems of William Dunbar, 
Vienna, 1891, pp. 190 flf.; ed. John Small, Scottish Text 
Society, 1884-93, Edinburgh and London, II, 314 ff; ed. 
David Laing, Select Remains of the Ancient Popular and 
Romance Poetry of Scotland, ed. Small, 1885, pp. 296 S. 

Page 26. fThis is Laing's and Schipper's text, following the 
Asloan MS., here obviously the best. Small, in his edition 
(n, 314) reads somewhat diflFerently: 
Bot 3it I trow that I vary, 
I am hot ane Blynd Hary, 
That lang hes bene with the fary 
Farlyis to fynd. 

And the first two lines he thus curiously mistranslates (III, 
378) : " But yet I beUeve truly that I am but another 
Blind Harry," thus losing the real point of the situation. 

Page 27. *Professor G. Gregory Smith, who has no doubt that 
the poem is by Dunbar, writes: " The more gorgeous Gar- 
gantua, who required but ' nine hundred ells of Chasteleraud 
linen, and two hundred for gussets' for his shirt, and ' eight 
hundred and thirteen ells of white satin ' for his doublet, 
must have admired his Ossianic neighbour had he heard of 
liim. And it is doubtful whether the ever-excellent Rabelais 
had the poetic fancy wliich added the conceit of the tiara 
of stars. There is plenty of that topsy-turvy mystical hu- 
mour wliich some in compliment call Celtic, but the piece 
is never too literary for the plain man who clamoured for 
sheer fun and reality " {The Transition Period, 1900, p. 
294). 

Is the humor of Dunbar only " in compliment called Cel- 
tic " ? There is as much that is " topsy-turvy " as there is 
" mystical " in the Celtic imagination, as much of the 
grotesque as of the finely-shaded, as much of the boisterous 
and coarse as of the subdued and subduing. The debt of 
Scottish poetry to the temper and traditions of the Gaels 
has never been suflSciently emphasized. 



NOTES 295 

Page 28. *Introduction in his edition, p. 190; cf. his William 
Dunbar, Berlin, 1884, pp. 207-215. 

Page 28. f" As," he says, " we may conclude from the epi- 
thets mandrag, mymmerkin (v, 29), ignorant elf (v. 36), 
duerch (v. 491) and others given him by Kennedy in ' The 
Flyting.' " But this is hardly conclusive. 

Page 28. |Introduction to Small's edition, I, Ixxxii. 

Page 29. *Cf. his William Dunbar, p. 207; edition, Pt. II, 
p. 192; Small, III, 378. 

Page 30. * Wallace and Bruce Restvdied, p. 9. 

Page SO. f" Faery " was used in various senses in Middle- 
English. It is a locality (as in the Interlude) in Sir Guy: 

Here beside an elfish knight 
Hath taken my lord in fight. 
And hath him led with him away 
Into the Faerie, Sir, par ma fay. 

Chaucer used it as a locality in the Squire's Tale, where he 
speaks of Gawain's coming back " out of faerie." Cf. " the 
contree of fairye " in Sir Thopas. The phrase " of faerie," 
on the other hand, seems to mean " of fairy origin," " due 
to fairy contrivance," in the line where, speaking of the 
horse of brass, the poet remarked: " It was of faerie, as the 
peple semed "; cf. William of Palerne, ed. Skeat. 1. 230; 
Piers Plowman, ed. Skeat, II, 3 f. In the following lines 
from Emare, it is equivalent to " illusion." 

The Emperor sayd on hygh 

Sertes thys ys a fayry 

Or ellys a vanyte (103 fif.)- 

See Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, Bohn Library, 
1850, pp. 8 ff. The A text of Piers Ploivman in the passage 
quoted (1. 6) reads " a f eyrie "; the B text, " of fairy." 

Page 82. *Perhaps we ought always to call him the Droich, 
for the form of the name is Gaelic, and in itself suggests its 
Celtic origin. 



296 NOTES 

Page 33. *See D'Arbois de Jubainville, Cycle Mythologique, 
pp. 244-245; also Transactions of the Ossianic Society for 
1857, V, 234; Charles Squire, Die Mythology of the British 
Islands, London, Glasgow and Dublin, 1905, pp. 123 ff.; 
Book of Leinster, 12 b. 

Page 3^. *" Battle of the Trees," Poem VIII in the Booh of 
Taliessin (Skene, Four Ancient Books of Wales, I, 276). 
The passage next quoted is from a poem in the prose tale 
of Taliesin (Nutt, Mabinogion, p. 307). This tale, though 
based on material of the most primitive sort, is a sixteenth- 
century production, and even the poems it contains have 
been greatly modified by the intrusion of Biblical and 
mediaeval lore; see Nutt, Voyage of Bran, II, 84 flf. See 
pp. 244-245, below. 

Page 3^. fCompare the Dwarf's words " I am cum heir " 
to Scotland, which was part of " the remnant of Troia." 
When he leaves, he promises to come again soon. There is 
no indication that he is near the end of his days. 

Page 35. *In an anonymous insertion in Reginald Scot's Dis- 
coverie of Witchcrafte, London, 1665, Bk. II, ch. 4; ed. B. 
Nicholson, London, 1886, p. 511. 

Page 35. ]Ihid., pp. 485 ff. The same writer speaks (p. 473) 
of " astral spirits as fairies, nymphs, and ghosts of men." 

Page 36. *Bk. VII, ch. 15; ed. Nicholson, p. 122. 

Page 37. *C Text, XVI, 163 ff.; cf. Skeat's edition, II, 197 f.; 

of. Chaucer, Nun's Priest's Tale, 1. 116; "The bug which 

you would fright me with" {Winter's Tale, III, ii, 93); 

"A bugbear take him!" {Troilus and Cressida, IV, 2); 

Marston, Antonio's Revenge, III, i, 134-135 : 
He will not sleepe, but calls to followe you, 
Crying that bug-beares and spirits haunted him. 

In Leechdoms (ed. Cokayne, III, 38-41) is a recipe against 
the attack by a dwarf, i.e. convulsions. 

Page 37. '\Epithalamion, 11. 341 ff. Note Ben Jonson's 
" Pug " in The Devil is an Ass. Cf. Burton, Anatomy of 
Melancholy, Part I, sect. 2, mem. 1, subsect. 2, 



NOTES 297 

Page 38. *Chaucer terms the Pardoner a " belamy," and per- 
haps the word in his case means more than has ordinarily 
been thought. Cf. " Seie, quaj) the admiral, belamy. 
Ho makede Jje so hardy " (Floris and Blancheflor, 1. 633); 
" Belamy, let be thy din " (Satan to Christ, Towneley 
Mysteries, p. 251). Chaucer's Manciple was " a boystous 
man." The word appears to be of Celtic origin (Welsh 
bwystus, wild, ferocious), and is commonly used in Scots. 
Beldame has had a similar history to belamy. Whittier 
writes in his New England Legend (quoted Century Dic- 
tionary) : 

Our witches are no longer old 
And wrinkled beldames, Satan- sold. 

Page 38. fV, 1102 f. 

Page 39. *See below, p. 71. 

Page 39. fSee Roscher's Ausfiihrliches Lexicon, I, 3019 ff. ; 
Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 130 f ., 273, 600 n. 

Page 39. t Justing and Debait up at the Drum Betuix William 
Adamsone and Johine Sym (ed. Cranstoun, Scottish Text 
Society, p. 9). Hercules, it may be noted, like Wallace 
(according to Blind Harry's account), is said to have worn 
the garments of a woman and spun wool. Moreover, in 
patriotic indignation he cut off the noses and ears of the 
envoys of King Erginus of Orchomenos, on their way to 
demand tribute of the Thebans. 

Page 39. §Ed. J. Payne Collier, for the Percy Society, 1841; 
ed. Frank Sidgwick, The Sources and Analogues of * A Mid- 
summer- Night's Dream,' 1908, pp. 81 ff.; see particularly 
87-88, 97, 101, 109 ff. Hector Boece has a passage on Robin 
and other familiar spirits. 

Page 40. *Robin's habitual cry, " ho, ho, ho," which Shake- 
speare gives to his shape-shifting Puck, reminds us of the 
cry of the Dwarf in opening the Interlude: 
Hiry, hary, hubbilschow! 
See quha is cum now. 

The " hary " here seems to be the old French exclamation 
" harou." 



298 NOTES 

Page J^O. fEd. Laing, Select Remains, pp. 267 ff , There was a 
ruler of the aes sidhe named Boadach who dwelt in the Plain 
of Delight which Connla visited for love of a beautiful 
damsel; see Nutt, Voyage, I, 145, 175. Jobath, son of Beo- 
thach, penetrated the underworld, like Gwydion and Cuchu- 
linn; see Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, p. 262. There are curious 
likenesses between the story of Berdok's trip to ravish the 
" golk " (cuckoo) of faery and Odin's visit to Gunnlod in 
Snorri's Edda (trans. A. G. Brodeur, N. Y., 1916, pp. 94 ff.) 

Page 4/. *Imperfectly preserved in the Percy Folio MS., ed. 
Hales and Furnivall, I, 88 ff. 

Page 41- fThe Isle of Man was long identified with the other- 
world. See Rhys, Arthurian Legend, p. 355. " According to 
some accounts, the Isle of Man as a mythic country was 
that called the Isle of the Men of Falga or Failge, over whom 
reigned Mider, king of the fairies, when Cuchulainn carried 
away his daughter Blathnat, together with his Cauldron and 
his Three Cows that filled it with their milk. This name of 
Failge was otherwise explained to mean the Western Isles 
of Scotland. It may also have been identified with the 
mythic City of Falias, from which the Tuatha De Danann 
were said to have brought to Ireland one of their treasures, 
the Lia Fdil (Keating, Dublin, 1880, pp. 112-119). " Cf. 
Waldron, Description of the Isle of Man, London, 1731. 
Collins wrote (Ode to Liberty) : 

Mona once hid from those that search the main. 

Where thousand elfin shapes abide. 

Page ^1. JWe learn of the Ghost of Guy from a Latin tract, 
the Spiritus Guidonis, apparently of the year 1323, which 
is extant in an English prose translation in the Vernon Manu- 
script of the fourteenth century, as well as in a later metri- 
cal version. Both the latter were printed by Horstmann in 
his Yorkshire Writers, London, 1896, II, 292 ff. Cf. Dyce's 
edition of Skelton (II, 185) for other references to him. 

Page 43. *Eyre-Todd {Scottish Poetry of the Sixteenth Cen- 
tury, p. 29) notes unwisely: " Perhaps the Sir Guy of ro- 
mance." 



NOTES ^99 

Page 43. fEd. Laing, Select Remains, pp. 208 ff. — The 
giants Gotmagot and Corineus appear in a London pageant 
at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1559; see E. K. 
Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, Oxford, 1903, II, 172. 

Page U- *Rev., XX, 7-8. 

Page 4^4. fBk. I, oh. 16; cf. Alex. Scott's remark about Her- 
cules, above p. 39. On Gog Magog, see Wyntoun, I, vii, 
341 flF., I, X, 583 fif. 

Page 44- JAt the end of the story of Cuchulinn's Sick Bed, in 
the Book of the Dun Goto, we read: " The demoniac power 
was great before the faith, and such was its greatness that 
the demons used to fight bodily against mortals, and they 
used to show them delights and secrets of how they would 
be in immortality." See Nutt, Voyage of Bran, I, 157, 
Tylor points out that " Augustine, in an instructive pas- 
sage, states the popular notions of the visits of incubi, 
vouched for, he tells us, by testimony of such quantity and 
quality that it may seem impudence to deny it: yet he is 
careful not to commit himself to a positive belief in such 
spirits. Later theologians were less cautious, and grave argu- 
mentation on nocturnal intercourse with incubi and succubi 
was carried on till, at the height of mediaeval civilization, 
it is found accepted in full belief by ecclesiastics and lawyers. 
Nor is it to be counted as an ugly but harmless super- 
stition, when for example it is set forth in the Bull of Pope 
Innocent VIII. in 1484, as an accepted accusation against 
' many persons of both sexes, forgetful of their own salva- 
tion, and falling away from the Catholic faith ' " {Primi- 
tive Culture, 4th ed., II, 190-191; cf. Augustine, De Civitate 
Dei, XV, 23). 

Page ^-4- §Bishop Carswell, in his preface to his Gaelic version 
of the Prayer-book for the reformed Church of Scotland, 
which was printed in Edinburgh in 1567, lamenting the 
absence of printed Gaelic books, remarks: " Great is the 
blindness and darkness of sin and ignorance and under- 
standing among composers and writers and supporters of 



300 NOTES 

the Gaelic, in that they prefer and practice the framing of 
vain, hurtful, lying earthly stories, about the Tuath de 
Danand, about the sons of Miled, and about the heroes and 
Finn Mac Cumhaill with his giants, and about many others 
whom I shall not number or tell of here in detail, in order 
to maintain and advance these, with a view to obtaining 
for themselves passing worldly gain, rather than to write 
and to compose and to support the faithful words and 
the perfect way of truth. For the world loves the lie much 
more than the truth " (Stern, Die Ossianischen Heldenlieder, 
trans. J. L. Robertson, Transactions of the Gaelic Society 
of Inverness, XXII, 1897-98, p. 293). 

Page ^5. *Ed. Andrew Lang, London, 1893, p. 26. Kirk was 
a student of theology at St. Andrews, took his M.A. at 
Edinburgh, and afterwards became a minister at Aberfoyle. 
In 1684 he published a Psalter in Gaelic. He was reputed 
not to have died, but to have been made a captive in a shi, 
or fairy hill. Lang thought (Introduction, p. xxiii) the sub- 
terranean inhabitants of Kirk's book " a lingering memory 
of the Chthonian beings, ' the Ancestors.' " " Fairyland," 
he explained, " was a kind of Hades, or home of the dead." 

Page Jt.5. fPatrick Joyce {Social History of Ireland, I, 273 f.) 
calls attention to the fact that Jocelin of Furness, who 
wrote a life of St. Patrick in the twelfth century tells us 
that before the Saint came " Ireland was deemed the special 
home of demons. . . . The magician, evil-doers, and 
soothsayers abounded beyond what history records of any 
other country on the face of the earth." And he himself 
adds: " What with Dedannan gods, with war-gods and 
goddesses, apparitions, demons, sprites of the valley, ordi- 
nary ghosts, spectres, and goblins, fairies of various kinds — 
sheevras, leprechauns, banshees, and so forth — there ap- 
pears to have been quite as numerous a population belong- 
ing to the spiritual world as of human beings. In those old 
pagan days, Ireland was an eerie place to live in; and it was 
high time for St. Patrick to come." What was true in this 
respect of Ireland, was true also of Celtic Scotland. 



NOTES 301 

Page 4.5. XThe Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare, London, 1900, 
pp. 10, 25, 32. For the use of Robin Goodfellow as the 
pseudonym of the publisher of Tarlton's Jests out of Pur- 
gatory, a work sometimes attributed to Nash, see below, 
p. 110. 

Page 47. *Ed. and trans. Kuno Meyer. 

Page 48. *Dunbar, ed. Small, II, 5; Wallace, VII, 350. 

Page 48. fMerchant's Tale, 11. 794 ff ., 983. Sir Orfeo shows well 
how classical tales were made over to resemble those of the 
Celts. See Kittredge, American Journal of Philology, VII, 
176 ff. 

Though Sir Orfeo is represented as a king of England 
with his Capitol at Winchester, we read (11. 29 ff.) : 
His fader was comen of king Pluto, 
And his moder of [quene] Juno, 
That sum time were as godes y-hold. 
For aventours that thai dede and told. 

In a Scottish interlude, called The Layhig of Lord Fergus's 
Gaist (Laing, Select Remains, pp. 306 ff.) " Orpheus king 
and Elpha quene " are said to be the offspring of a little 
ghost; cf. Scott's Minstrelsy, 1803, I, clx ff. 

Page 48. t" Institit homuncio capro maximo secundum fabu- 
1am insidens, vir qualis describi posset Pan, ardenti facie, 
capite maximo, barba rubente prolixa, pectus contingen- 
teque, nebride preclarum stellata, cui venter hispidus, et 
crura pedes in caprinos degenerabant {De Nugis Curialium, 
Dist. I, ch. xi, ed. M. R. James, p. 13). This faery dwarf 
himself says: " Ego rex multorum regum et principum, 
innumerabilis et infiniti populi." 

Page 48. §" Insuper dubitatur: an possunt futura predicere; 
et movetur dubitatio. Sunt aliqui apud nostrates Britannos 
qui more prophetico predicunt utpote de morte et homicidio 
aliquorum " {Exposition of Matthew, ed. 1518, fol. xlviii; 
cited by Constable, In trod., p. xxx, note 2). 

Page 49. *See on the whole matter of the Kouretes and the 
cult of Dionysus, Jane E. Harrison, Themis, Cambridge, 



302 NOTES 

1912. Brand tells us that in his time (1701) fairies were 
frequently seen in the Orkneys " in armoiu-," dancing and 
making merry. This is significant, especially when we re- 
member that Luridan was the chief of Orkney brownies. 

Page 49. fin Themis, p. 343. 

Page 49. JJ. G. Frazer, Golden Bough, 3d. ed.. Part VII, 
Vol. I, pp. 226 fiF.; Encyc. Brit, under Hallowe'en. 

Page 49. %Poems, ed. Cranstoun, S.T.S., p. 69. The lines were 
quoted by King James in his Reulis and Cautelis, with some 
variations. See the editor's note, p. 312: " a vivid picture of 
the hellish host in one of their midnight revels." Cf. Chau- 
cer's Wife of Bath's Tale: 

In tholde dayes of the king Arthour, 

Of which that Britons speken greet honour, 

Al was this land fnlfild of fayerye. 

The elf-queen, with hir joly companye, 

Daunced ful ofte in many a grene mede. 

Cf . further Thomson, in The Castle of Indolence, I, 30 : 

As when a shepherd of the Hebrid Isles, 

Placed far amid the melancholy main, 

(Whether it be lone fancy him beguiles. 

Or that aerial beings sometimes deign 

To stand embodied, to oiu* senses plain). 

Sees on the naked hill, or valley low. 

The whilst in Ocean Phoebus dips his wain, 

A vast assembly moving to and fro; 

Then, all at once, in air, dissolves the wondrous show. 

Page 50. *The editors of the S.T.S. edition of Dunbar (Intro- 
duction, pp. ccxxxiiif.; cf. Ixxxii f.) connect the Interlude 
with the festivities in honor of the Princess Margaret who 
was married to King James August 8, 1503, and suggest a 
secret meaning to the poem. But there is Uttle likelihood in 
this. All that we can be sure of is that it was written for, or 
adapted for, some festival in Edinburgh, which is much 
praised not only as " the lamp and a per se of this region, 
in all degree of welfare and of honesty, renown and rich 



NOTES 303 

array," but also as the place " where is merriest cheer, 
plesance, disport, and play." (Compare Burns's praise of 
Auld Ayr in Tarn.) The ' ' amiable audience ' ' whom ' ' the god 
of most magnificence is asked to conserve," was made up of 

Prowest, baillies, ofBceris, 
And honerable induellaris, 
Marchandis and familiaris 

Of all this fair towne, 

who thus were invited to join in a Robin Hood, and there- 
fore perhaps a May-day, celebration: 

3e noble merchandis ever ilkane 
Address 30W furth with bow and flane 

In lusty grene lufraye. 
And follow furth on Robyn Hude. 

Chambers thought the piece " clearly a ' banns' for a May- 
game " {Mediaeval Stage, II, 455). 

Stubbes, in his Anatomy of Abuses (1585), wrote: 
" Against Male, every parishe, towne, and village, as- 
semble themselves together, bothe men, women, and 
cliildren, olde and yonge, even all indifferently, and either 
going all together or devidjTig themselves into companies, 
they goe, some to the woodes and groves, some to the hills 
and mountaines, some to one place, some to another, where 
they spend all the night in pastimes; in the morninge they 
return, bringinge with them birclie, bowes and branches of 
trees, to deck their assemblies withalle " (ed. Furnivall, 
p. 149; quoted Skeat, Works of Chaucer, V, 65). 

Page 51. *See Gilbert Murray on the Prologue in Greek 
drama in Miss Harrison's Themis, pp. 359 ff., especially 
361. 

Page 51. fTrans. A. S. Way, 1912, HI, 1. 

Page 53. ^Studies of the Gods in Greece, London, 1891, p. 
145. Of the Bacchanals, Dyer says: " It may be called the 
Passion-play of Attica, and it has been compared to the 
medieval morality " (pp. 136-137). Milton was fond of it. 



304 NOTES 

CHAPTER IV 

Page 56. *See J. A. H. Murray, Thomas of Erceldoune, 
E.E.T.S., 1875, pp. 52 flf. 

Page 56. fin another version in the Whole Prophesie of Scot- 
land, the " little man " who reveals the ferlys is Thomas 
Rhymer himself. See Murray, Ibid., pp. 48 ff. — Printed in 
1603 and later. 

Page 57. *Itinerary through Wales, Bk. I, Ch. V. 

Page 58. *Cf. Murray, pp. xxxvii f.; Taylor, p. 73. Even so 
Tuan Mac Cairill, surviving his kin, wandered over the 
hills, living in caves, until old age betook him, " hairy, 
clawed, withered, grey, naked, wretched, miserable." Fin- 
ally, after " varying " into diflferent shapes, he was bap- 
tized by St. Patrick, not, we presume, without satisfying 
all the Saint's questions. See Voyage of Bran, II, 76 ff., 
285 ff. 

Page 58. fSee Ward, Romania, XXII (1893), 504 ff.; F. Lot, 
Annales de Bretagne, XV (1899), 336 ff. Lailoken was iden- 
tified with Merlin in the Middle Ages in Scotland, e.g., by 
Fordun, in the Scotichronicon. 

Page 59. *Nutt, Voyage of Bran, II, 227, Kirk {Secret Com- 
monwealth, ed. A. Lang, p. 16) speaks of " the Tabhaisver 
or Seer " that can conjure up familiar spirits. Does this 
indicate the origin of the name ? 

Page 59. fSee Murray, pp. xvi f. 

Page 59. |Really an Anglo-Norman poet, and a great one. See 
Schofield, Eng. Lit. from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer, 
pp. 203 ff. 

Page 60. *He has gone through various transformations, fi- 
nally becoming " a mother-naked man." 

Page 60. fin the following passage descriptive of the treat- 
ment of Libeaus Desconus by the Lady of the Golden Isle, 
a mistress of " sorcery," who regaled the hero with " melody 



NOTES 305 

of all minstrelsy," the blearing of the eye was a sign of her 
fairy power, meaning more than merely to delude, or cajole, 
as is usually thought: 

With fantasme and fairie 

])us sche blered his i^e. 

(Libeaus Desconus, ed. Kaluza, 11. 1522-1523). 

Supernatural beings had control over the eyesight of 
mortals. They could transiently " blear " their eyes, or 
make them permanently blind. 

Page 60. XFlatetjjarhok, Christiania, 1860, 1, 339-362; cf. Ryd- 
berg, Teutonic Mythology, pp. 210-211; Nutt, Voyage, I, 
298; Saxo Grammaticus, trans. Elton and Powell, p. Ixviii. 
In the same Saga we read of a blind old man in the island of 
Moster " who was reported to have great foresight and 
prophetic power." He prophesies the loss in one voyage 
of the Norsemen of four things " the most noble of their 
kind that ever came into the land " (trans. Sephton, pp. 
399 f.; cf. Vigfusson, Sturlunga Saga, p. Ixxxiii). 

Page 60. ^Secret Commonwealth, ed. Lang, p. 13. Kirk tells 
among " instances of undoubted verity " the case of a wo- 
man who " lived in the country next to that of my last 
residence," who returned to her husband after having been 
in faery. " Among other reports she gave her husband, this 
was one : that she perceived little what they did in the spa- 
cious house she lodged in, until she anointed one of her eyes 
with a certain unction that was by her; which they perceiv- 
ing to have acquainted her with their actions, they fain'd [?] 
her blind of that eye with a puff of their breath. She found 
the place full of light, without any fountain or lamp from 
whence it did spring " (p. 34). For other cases of mortals 
struck blind by fairies, see Keightley, pp. 298, 303, 312, 354; 
Child, Ballads, I, 339; II, 505; III, 505; Rh5^s, Celtic Folk- 
lore, I, 99; etc. To these last cases I have been referred by 
Professor Kittredge. 

Page 61. *Secret Commonwealth, ed. Lang, p, 23. 

Page 61. fSee Keightley, pp. 387 f. 



306 NOTES 

Page 62. *J. F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the West High- 
lands, new edition. Paisley and London, 1893, IV, 34 f.; cf. 
II, 113. In Scottish tradition the abode of Thomas Rhymer 
is identified with that of the Feinne; see J. G. Campbell, 
Swperstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, 1900, 
p. 270, note 1. 

Page 63. *Bruce, III, 68 ff. " The Lowland poet here remarks," 
says Campbell, " that he might ' mar manerlik ' have 
' liknit ' him to Gaudifer de Larys, and narrates an exploit 
performed by that hero of romance, which he knew, and 
thought a better illustration of Bruce's valour. . . . The 
passage refers to the strife which, according to tradition, 
was constantly going on between Goll Macmorna and 
Fionn; and the Lord of Lome (Mac Cowl) spoke according 
to his lights, to men who understood what he meant. Irish 
history claims a real existence for Fionn and Goll, and 
modern Lowland stories have added supernatural incidents 
to the real history of the Bruce and Wallace " (Popular 
Tales, IV, 47-48). 

Page 63. fEd. SmaU, I, 65. 

Page 6^. *Colville, in his Whigs' Supplication (1681), brings 
Wallace into connection with Fyn MacCowl. 

One man, quoth he, ofttimes hath stood. 

And put to flight a multitude. 

Like Samson, Wallace, and Sir Bewis, 

And Fyn MacCowl beside the Lewis (Hebrides). 
Hector Boece remarks {Scot. Hist., 1. 7, fols. 128-129, Fol. 
Par. 1574 — quoted Comm. High. Soc, p. 22, note) : 
" Coniiciunt quidam in haec tempora Fynnanum filium 
Coeli (Fyn makCoul, vulgari vocabulo) virum, uti ferunt 
immani statura (septenum enim cubitorum hominem fuisse 
narrant) Scotici sanguinis, venatoria arte insignem, omni- 
busque insolita corporis mole f ormidolosum : circularibus 
fabulis, et iis quae de Arthuro Britonum rege, passim apud 
nostrates leguntur, simillimum, magis quam eruditorum 
testimonio decantatum. Huius itaque viri mirabilibus, quod 
ab historica fide baud parum abhorrere omnibus sunt visa, 



NOTES 307 

consulto supersedentes, Eugenij regis gesta deinceps 
prosequemur." 

Page 64. fCf • Alfred Nutt, Ossian and the Ossianic Literature, 
London, 1819, pp. 39 f.: "I see no reason for doubting that 
the visit of Oisin to the Land of Youth, and his return to 
earth, were early component parts of the Fenian cycle. Li 
one of the chief monuments of that cycle, the Agallamh na 
Senorach, or Colloquy with the Ancients, preserved in four- 
teenth century MSS., and probably a composition of the 
thirteenth century, the living on of Oisin and Caoilte into 
Patrician times is definitely indicated. . . . And a super- 
natiu-ally prolonged life is presupposed by the extensive 
body of Ossianic poetry, which brings the hero in contact 
with St. Patrick, and which must be at least as old as the 
fourteenth century, as it is found in an obviously worndown 
condition in the Book of the Dean of Lismore " (Voyage of 
Bran, I, 151-152). 

For oral versions of the story, see Transactions of the 
Ossianic Society for the year 1856, Dublin, 1859, p. 233; 
Henry Charles Coote, "The Neo-Latin Fay" in The Folk- 
Lore Record, London, 1879, II, 15 ff. Also Patrick Kennedy, 
Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts, London, 1866, pp. 
240 S. ; J. Curtin, Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland, Boston, 
1890, pp. 327 S. Joyce, Old Celtic Romances, 1879, pp. 
385 ff. 

Page 65. *Ossian returns as he came on a magic horse, through 
the air. The steed that Tarn Lin rode was " lighter than the 
wind." Even so, Dunbar's Dwarf, alias Blind Harry, could 
" go by the sky light as the lynd." 

Page 66. *Silva Gadelica, trans. Standish Hayes O'Grady, 
II, 290-291 ; cf. Meyer and Nutt, Voyage of Bran, I, 180 ff.; 
D'Arbois, Cycle Mythologique, p. 365. 

Page 66. Woyage of Bran, I, 135 ff. 

Page 67. *Ed. Gaston Paris, Romania, VLH (1879), 50 ff. See 
Schofield, Lay of Guingamor {Harvard Studies and Notes, 
V, 221 ff.). 



308 NOTES 

Page 67. fit was believed that to eat the food of faery folk 
put one in their power. It was because Persephone ate 
fruit in the garden of Hades that she was condemned to 
become his wife. By drinking ale in faery Loegaire was 
made one of the people there. When Connla ate a faery 
apple he longed irresistibly for his Elysium. See also 
pp. 66, 253. Gaston Paris remarks: " Dans Baudouin de 
Sebourc les fruits merveilleux du paradis terrestre rapellent 
plus directment la legende primitive; mais ils ont perdu leur 
vraie signification; ceux que produit I'un des arbres rajeunis- 
sent, ceux que donne I'autre viellissent en un moment " 
{Romania, VIII, 51.). 

Page 68. *Guingamor, however, was not left thus disconsolate 
on earth. The fay sent two maidens to put him back on 
his horse and take him to a boat, which carried him across 
the river to her abode, yet not without blaming him for his 
offense. 

Likewise Lanval and Graelent each suffered for disobey- 
ing his fairy mistress's commands. (See Schofield, The Lays 
of Graelent and Lanval, Puhl. Mod. Lang. Aes'n of America, 
XV, 130 ff.). Yvain's madness had originally something to 
do with his separation from the fay Lunete. 

Page 68. fEd. T. Wright, p. 16 f.; ed. M. R. James, 1914, 
pp. 13 ff., Dist. 1, ch. xi. 

Page 68. JEven so the fabulous Old Norse Yngling King 
Swegdir, in search of Odin, was pictured as accepting the 
invitation of a dwarf to enter a stone, at the door of which 
the latter stood. As Snorri tells us in the Heimskringla 
(trans. Morris and Magnusson, I, 25-26) : " Swegdir ran 
into the stone and it shut behind him straightway and 
Swegdir never came back." 

Page 69. *F. Lot thinks it was (Romania, XXXII, 441 note; 
cf. A. C. L. Brown, Iwain, pp. 110, 119). The " Fairy-Rade" 
was familiar in the Highlands; see Keightley , pp. 354 f., 384. 

Page 69. fSee Adam de la Halle's Jeu de la Feuillee, written 
in 1262 (ed. Langlois, Paris, 1911). Cf. Driesen, Ursprung 
des Harlekin, Berlin, 1904; Child, Ballads, I, 321. 



NOTES 309 

It was surely as a leader of the Wild Chase that Sir 
Orfeo saw 

The king o Fairi with his rout. 

Com to hunt him al about. 

With dun cri and bloweing. 

And houndes also with him berking. 

Ac no best thai no nome. 

No never he nist whider thai bicome. 

Page 69. tEd. Hales and Furnivall, Percy Folio MS., I, 341 ff . 

Page 69. §Her name Loosepain, given her, according to the 
romancer, because " a better leech was none certaine," may 
be a corruption of Luchorpain, another (perhaps the more 
original) form of Luchorcan. The name " Chatelain de 
Coucy " was translated in a late English romance " Knight 
of Courtesy! " 

Page 69. \\ See Schofield, Eng. Lit. from the Norman Conquest 
to Chaucer, pp. 232 f . 

Page 70. *See Romania, VIII, 51; Keightley, pp. 46 ff. 

Page 70. fSee Malory, Morte DaHhur, Bk. XXI; cf. for the 
case of Connla, son of Conn, below, p. 253. 

Page 70. XFall of Princes, Bk. VIII. ch. 25. 

Page 70. ^Origins of English History, ch. X. 

Page 71. *Child, Ballads, I, 329 ff. On Oberon, see Keightley, 
pp. 38 ff. 

Page 72. *Here the " little man " is given clothing, which is 
described in curious detail; but in the ballad he was evi- 
dently naked. 

His legs were skant a shathmont lang 

Yet umber was his thie; 
Between his brows there was ae span. 
And between his shoulders three. 

Page 72. fSee the Chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft, ed. Thomas 
Wright, Rolls Series, London, 1866, II, 452, where the 
prophecies are given. Cf. Ward, Catalogue of Romances, I, 
300; Rupert Taylor, Political Prophecy, New York, 1911, 
pp. 65 ff. 



310 NOTES 

Page 12. JThe Dwarf says: 

I haif bene formest evir in feild. 
And now sa lang I haif borne scheild 
That 1 am crynit in for eild 
This littill, as 3e may sie. 

Page 73. *Roman de Merlin, ed. Sommer, London, 1894, 
pp. 438 ff. Merlin repeatedly changed his shape (see Ibid., 
pp. 42, 67 ff., 79, 130, 191, 302, 432). In one case he ap- 
pears in the form of a wild man {omme salvage), interprets 
dreams, delivers prophecies, and fools the court of Rome 
(see the long account of the episode, Ibid., pp. 302-311). 
In the Roman (p. 491) Gawain also appears transformed as 
a dwarf, and is only released from his shrivelled condition 
by following Merlin's advice. Arthur dubs an ugly dwarf, 
who was the son of the King of Brangoire (pp. 452 ff., 
485 ff.). 

Page 7^. *Silva Gadelica, II, 269 ff. — " The Death of Fer- 
gus." In Jubhdan's lay of his treasures, he thus describes 
his timpan: "My timpan, O my timpan, endowed with 
string-sweetness, from the red-sea's borders! Within its 
wires resides minstrelsy to delight all women of the uni- 
verse. Whosoe'er should in the matter of tuning up my 
timpan be suddenly put to the test, if never hitherto he had 
been a man of art yet would the instrument of itself per- 
form the minstrel's functions. Ah how melodious is its 
martial strain, and its low cadence ah how sweet! All of it- 
self too how it plays, without a finger on a single string of 
all its strings." 

Page lit. \Trans. of the Ossianic Society, IV (1856), pp. 5, 215. 

Page 75. *In the Colloquy of the Elders (Silva Gadelica, II, 
115 ff.). 

Page 75. fTogether with Cnu Deireoil and Blathnait his wife, 
Caeilte enumerates the following minstrels of Finn, about 
whom little is known: " Daighre mac Morna, Der ua 
Daighre, Senach ua Daighre, Suanach son of Senach, and 
Suanach that was Finn mac Cumall's reciter of old tales 



NOTES 311 

and the sweetest that in Ireland or Scotland ever handled 
timpan " (Silva Gadelica, II, 229 f.; of. p. 240). That they 
were all faery folk is clear from the following account of 
that master musician of Ireland, the Kern of the Narrow 
Stripes, in which two of the above list reappear {Silva 
Gadelica, II, 313) : 

" He with that taking an instrument made symphony so 
gently sweet, and in such wise wakened the dulcet pulses 
of the harp, that in the whole world all women labouring 
of child, all wounded warriors, mangled soldiers, and gal- 
lant men gashed about — with all in general that suffered 
sore sickness and distemper — might with the witching 
charm of this his modulation have been lapped in stupor of 
slumber and of soundest sleep. ' By Heaven's grace again,' 
exclaimed O'Donnell, ' since first I heard the fame of 
them that within the hills and under the earth beneath us 
make the fairy music — such as are Finn mac Forgy, and 
Shennach O'Dorgy, and Suanach mac Shennach, and the 
scol6g of Kilcullen and the bacach of Benburren : that at one 
and the same time make some to sleep, and some to weep, 
and others again to laugh — music sweeter than thy strains 
I never have heard; thou art in sooth a most melodious 
rogue! ' * One day I 'm sweet, another I 'm bitter,' replied 
the Kern." 

Caeilte also sang a lay exalting the music of a minstrel of 
the Tuatha, Fer-tuinne, son of Trogan, and of him we read : 
" Though saws were being plied where there were women 
in sharpest pains of childbirth, and brave men that were 
wounded early in the day, nevertheless would such sleep 
to the fitful melody that he makes. Yet to the dwelling in 
which for the time being he actually is he is not minstrel 
more effectively than to that whole country's inhabitants in 
general [for all they as well may hear liim] " {Silva Gadelica, 
U, 111; cf. p. 246). 

For soporific music in the ballads, see further Child, I, 
55; II, 137, 139 ff., 511 f.; IV, 18 f.; V, 220, 293 — also 
Hyde-Dottin, SgSaluidhe Gaedhealach, pp. 188-189. Daghda 
the Druid, performs in the hall of his enemies the three 



312 NOTES 

feats which give distinction to a harper; makes the women 
cry tears, the women and youth burst into laughter, and 
the entire host fall asleep. O'Curry, Manners and Customs of 
the Ancient Irish, III, 214; cf. D'Arbois de Jubainville, 
Cours de la Litt. Celtique, II, 190 f . See also Revue Celtique, 
XII, 81, 109; XV, 438. 

Page 76. *Silva Gadelica, U, 187 f., 190 f., 213. 

Page 76. fSee Percy Folio MS., I, 246 S., Child, Ballads, II, 
136 ff., 511 f. In The Palace of Honour (ed. Small, I, 21, 
vv. 15-16) Douglas writes Glaskeriane. Glasgerion has 
been identified with Y Bardd Glas Keraint, Keraint the 
Blue Bard. " Kirion the Pale was indeed an efiFective harper, 
if the accounts given of him may be credited. Not more so 
was his compatriot Cadwallo, 'that hushed the stormy 
main,' or Modred, whose magic song made huge Plenlimmon 
bow his cloud-topp'd head " {P.P. MS., I, 246). Note the 
" silly blind harper " of Lochmaben, who fooled the English 
king (Child, IV, 16). 

Page 77. *The Sunset of Old Tales: " Orpheus and Oism." — 
The Irish tale, " The Three Daughters of Kmg O'Hara," 
reverses the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. (See Curtin, 
Myths and Folklore of Ireland, Boston, 1890.) Bugge thought 
the Scandinavian ballad Harpens Kraft was derived from 
Sir Orfeo (Child, V, 211). 



CHAPTER V 

Pa^e 79. *" Irish tradition," says Mr. Quiggin, " preserves 
the names of a number of antiquarian poets of prehistoric 
or early medieval times, such as Amergin, one of the 
Milesian band of invaders, Moran Roigne, son of Ugaine 
Mor, Adna and his successor Feirceirtne, Torna (c. 400), 
tutor to Niall Noigiallach, Dalian Forgaill, Senchan Tor- 
peist, and Cennfaelad (d. 678), but the poems attributed to 
these writers are of much later date." {Encycl. Brit., s.v. 
Celt: Irish Literature). 



NOTES 313 

Of Aneurin's noted epic Gododin, a would-be account of 
the British defeat by the Saxons at Cattraeth (603), Mr. 
Gruflfydd writes : " It seems probable that the original nucleus 
of the poem was handed down orally, and recited or sung by 
the bards and minstrels at the courts of different noblemen. 
It thus became the common stock-in-trade of the Welsh 
rhapsodist, and in time the bards, using it as a kind of 
framework, added to it pieces of their own composition 
formed on the original model, especially when the heroes 
named happened to be the traditional forefathers of their 
patrons, and occasionally introduced the names of new 
heroes and new places as it suited their purpose; and all 
this seems to have been done in early times. Older fragments 
dealing too with the legendary heroes of the Welsh were 
afterwards incorporated with the poem, and some of these 
fragments undoubtedly preserve the orthographical and 
grammatical forms of the 9th century. So that, on the 
whole, it seems as fruitless to look for a definite record of 
historical events in this poem as it would be to do so in the 
Homeric poems, but like them, though it cannot any longer 
be regarded as a correct and definite account of a particular 
battle or war, it still stands to this day the epic of the war- 
riors of its own nation " (Encycl. Brit., s.v. Celt: Welsh 
Literature). 

As to Llywarch Hen, see Nutt, Waifs and Strays of Celtic 
Tradition, IV, xxxiv f. 
Page 79. t" It is convenient to follow the long-established 
custom of speaking of certain Welsh poems as Taliessin's, 
and of a manuscript of the thirteenth century in which they 
are contained as the Book of Taliessin. These poems repre- 
sent a school of Welsh bardism, but we know in reality 
nothing about their authorship; and the personality of 
Taliessin is as mytliic as that of Gwydion and Merlin, both 
of whom have also been treated as the authors of Welsh 
verse." — Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 543-544; cf. Lady 
Guest's Mabinogion, III, 321-326, 356-361; Stephens, Lit. 
of the Cymry, pp. 167 ff., 270 ff. Taliessin becomes a 
denizen of the wilderness in the Vita Merlini, v. 1457 ff. 



314 NOTES 

" Both Taliessin and Myrddin," to quote again from Mr. 
Gruffydd, " the one as the mythological chief of all British 
bards and the other as a great magician, seem preeminently 
suited to attract a great deal of later Welsh poetry under 
their aegis. ... It was but natural that all the pseudo- 
prophetic poems, written of course after the events which 
they foretold, should be attributed to the chief among seers, 
Myrddin, or, as his name is written in English, Merlin; so 
that all the poems accredited to him, with the exception 
perhaps of the Avallenau, were not written before the 12th 
century." Encycl. Brit., s.v. Celt; Welsh Literature. On 
the date of the poems attributed to Merlin, see F. Lot, 
Annales de Bretagne, XV, 505 flf. Merlin, even in mediaeval 
romance, was pictured as a notorious shape-shifter. In a 
striking episode in the Roman de Merlin, he appears at 
covu*t as a dwarf. 

Page 80. *Dubthach, chief fill of Ireland in the time of Pat- 
rick, is represented as the saint's constant companion. 

Page 80. fHis story, from the Book of the Dun Cow (therefore 
of the beginning of the eleventh century at the latest), was 
edited by K. Meyer, Voyage of Bran, II, 285 ff.; cf. Nutt, 
Ibid., II, 76 S. It was used as a sort of preface to the Lebor 
Gabala; cf. D'Arbois, Cycle Mythologique, pp. 47 S. 

Page 81. *This book is, strictly speaking, the work of Michael 
O'Clery, one of the compilers of the Annals of the Four 
Masters, but it is founded upon older documents. See O' 
Curry, Lectures, p. 168; Skene, Celtic Scotland, I, 172; Nutt, 
Voyage, II, 80; D'Arbois, II, ch. 4. 

Page 81. fSee O'Curry, MS. Materials, App., cxxviii; Rhys, 
Hibbert Lectures, pp. 205, 210; Squire, Mythology, pp. 201 f. 
Cormac, son of Art, son of Conn, was a poet. See the story 
of the Gilla Decair {Silva Gadelica, 11, 292). 

Page 82. *I, 189. On Conn's chronicle, see above p. 23. 

Page 83. *See Eleanor Hull, The Cuchullin Saga, London, 
1898, pp. 109 ff.; cf. Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, p. 259. Odin 
tells similarly of his own exploits in Hdvamdl. 



NOTES 315 

Page 8^. *Hull, pp. 293 f. 

Page 85. *They also, of course, were the only ones who could 
tell of the otherworld. 

Page 85. ■\Trans. Ossianic Society, IV, 271, 273. For Ossian 
as a blind old man, see J. F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the 
West Highlands, Paisley and London, 1890, II, 113 ff.; of. 
Patrick Kennedy, Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts, Lon- 
don, 1866, pp. 240 ff. 

Page 86. * Report of the Committee of the Highland Society, 
1805, p. 16. 

Page 86. fOf the Gaelic poems in the Book of the Dean of 
Lismore, nine are directly attributed to Ossian, two to 
Fergus, one to Caeilte, and one to Conall Cearnach, while 
some are ascribed to otherwise unknown bards. 

Page 87. *Silva Gadelica, II, 101 ff., 107 ff. 

Page 87. fGiraldus Cambrensis (Topography of Ireland, Dist. 
Ill, ch. 2) makes " Roanus," i.e., Caeilte mac Ronan, sur- 
vive and tell the tale of Partholan to St. Patrick. 

Page 88. *Nutt notes the likeness between Forgoll's name 
and that of Dalian Forgaill, Columba's disciple and panegy- 
rist {Voyage of Bran, II, 82 note). 

Page 88. fOn satire in Celtic stories, see F. N. Robinson, 
Satirists and Enchanters in Early Irish Literature (published 
in Studies in the History of Religions, presented to Crawford 
Howell Toy, N.Y., 1912; the Morgan story is discussed 
on p. 119). 

To liis instances should perhaps be added the case of Sir 
Dinadan in Malory, Bk. X, E, K. Chambers says {Mediae- 
val Stage, I, 45) : " Nor were [minstrels] less in request for 
satire than for eulogy. The English speaking minstrels, in 
particular, were responsible for many songs of derision of 
unpopular causes and personalities; and we need not doubt 
that ' the lay that Sir Dinadan made by King Mark, which 



316 NOTES 

was the worst lay that ever harper sang with harp or with 
any other instrument,' must have had its precise counter- 
part in actual life." But was not Dinadan's lay of the old 
Celtic type, an echo of a mythical tale, not an image of 
actual life in England ? 

Page 89. *Silva Gadelica, II, 378 S. 

Page 89. fin a long topographical poem in the Dindsenchas 
he is made to recount the exploits of GoU mac Morna, and 
describe how the latter put a host to sleep by playing the 
harp, Cf. O'Curry, Lectures, p. 302; Nutt-Maclnnes, p. 406. 

Page 90. *Silva Gadelica, II, 167. On Fionn's birth and rear- 
ing, see Nutt, Folklore Record, IV, 1-36. 

Page 90. ^Silva Gadelica, II, 99-101; cf. p. 166. 

Page 90. tSilva Gadelica, II, 166. 

Page 90. §Notes to D. Maclnnes, Folk and Hero Tales, Lon- 
don, 1890, p. 407. 

Page 91. *Introduction to J. G. Campbell's Tlie Fians 
London, 1891, pp. xxxiv f. Nutt insisted on the difference 
between the prose and ballad forms of the Ossianic legend, 
the one Christian, the other pagan in spirit. See Voyage of 
Bran., I, 218, note. 

Page 92. *With Odin Rhys equated Gwydion of Welsh fable, 
who also was reputed to have gained the gift of poesy by 
penetrating to the otherworld (see below, p. 247). Gwy- 
dion, according to the Mabinogi of Math, was " the best 
story-teller in the world," and we are informed how more 
than once he assumed the form of a wandering bard to gain 
access to courts. " Gwydion," says Rh5's, " was the clever- 
est person ever heard of by Taliessin, who reckoned himself 
no poor judge in such a matter; and, as described by Lucian 
under the name of Ogmios, he was the god of eloquence and 
the wisdom thereto appertaining " {Hibbert Lectures, p. 285). 

Page 93. *Odyssey, VIII, 62, 487; XIII, 27. 



NOTES 317 

CHAPTER VI 

Page 97. *Gow mac Morn was one-eyed, like Odin. In the 
Boyish Exploits of Finn Mac Cumhaill (preserved in a man- 
uscript of the Psalter of Cashel, dated 1453), where Finn's 
enfances are represented in a manner not unlike those of 
Wallace, we are told how, in the battle of Cnucha for the 
Fian leadership in Erin, Aedh son of Morna fought with 
Luichet and lost one eye, " so that from this the name of 
GoU [Gow, Luscus] adhered to him from that time forth." 
(See Transactions of the Ossianic Society for the Year 1856, 
pp. 281 flF.) But the explanation of one-eyed folk (Odin 
among them) goes deei>er than that. 

The epithet " LoSrok " of the Danish warrior Ragnar, 
which means " shaggy-breeched," was interpreted as 
" lotlily brook " (odiosus rivus, ruisel hainus); cf. Geoffrey 
of Wells, Garland of St. Edmund, ed. Lord Francis Hervey, 
London, 1907, p. 156; Denis Pyramus, Life of St. Edmund, 
11. 1887 f . 

Page 97. fEd. MXauchlan and Skene, 1862. A new tran- 
scription of the Dean's MS. has since been made by Alex. 
Cameron, and published by Alex. Macbain and John Ken- 
nedy, Reliquiae Celticae, I, Inverness, 1892. 

The name of Malory's hero, Gareth, seems to be derived 
from the Welsh form of the name, where the -dh is pro- 
nounced -th. GoU (Gow) mac Morn was frequently called 
GoU na Beumanan, i.e., Goll of Blows. May not this epithet 
Beuman be the origin of the epithet which is ascribed to 
Gareth, Beaumains, the French romancer interpreting the 
Celtic epithet as " Fair Hands," though blows, not fair 
hands, are his chief characteristic ? (See J. G. Campbell, 
The Fians, p. 49.) He is called " Goll of the terrible deeds " 
in Silva Gadelica, II, 174. Cf. " Garry, than whom no 
bloodier foe"; "Garry (Garryth) of the powerful arm" 
(Book of the Dean of Lismore, p. 9, Gaelic on p. 6 — from a 
poem by Ossian). Garry was the name of more than one of 
the Fenians. 

Page 98. *Silva Gadelica, II, 132-136. 



318 NOTES 

Page 98. fDaire (Doire) is also written Dyryth. 

Page 99. * " Find and the Phantoms," ed. and trans. "Whitley 
Stokes, Revue Celtique, VII, 289 ff. Mr. John Fleming of- 
fered corrections of the translation, in the Academy, Aug. 
24, 1889. Cf. Dr. Ansta's version in the Dublin University 
Magazine, XXXIX, 325 ff., which is entitled " The Rath 
of Badamar; also the notice by O'Curry, in his Lectures 
on the MS. Materials of Irish History, p. 305. Cf. also J. F. 
Campbell, Revue Celtique, I, 193 ff. 

Page 99. ^Wallace, Bk. IV, 11. 181 ff. It is to be noted that 
Gask Hall is in Perth, and that Wallace's companions are 
Irish. Cf. Wandering Willie's Tale in Redgauntlet. 

Page 99. JGrmm^TTid?, st. 48. 

Page 100. *Snorri's Edda {Gylfaginning, § xx), trans. Bro- 
deur, pp. 33 ff. 

Page 100. fSee Brand's Popular Antiquities, ed. Hazlitt, 
London, 1870, III, 295 f. William Geddie {A Bibliography of 
Middle Scots Poets, S.T.S., 1912, p. 151) quotes as a refer- 
ence to our poet (!) the following — from " Pennecuik, 
The Merry Wives of Musleburgh, at their meeting to- 
gether, to welcome Meg Dickson after her loup from the 
ladder, p. 17: ' It 's war nor playing a Blin Harrie.' " 

Compare the following from Lyndsay (Three Estates, ed. 
Laing, II, 244, quoted Jameson, s.v. 'Belly-blind ') : 

War I ane king . . . 

I sould richt sone mak reformatioun; 

Failyeand thairof your grace sould richt sone finde 

That Preists sail leid yow lyke any bellie blinde. 

Page 100. JSee Child, Ballade, I, 67. " The Billie Blin pre- 
sents himself in at least four Scottish ballads : ' Gil Brenton,' 
C ; ' Willie's Lady ' ; one version of ' Young Beichan ' ; 
two of ' The Knight and Shepherd's Daughter ' ; and also 
in the English ballad of ' King Arthur and the Kingj.of 
Cornwall,' here under the slightly disfigured name of Bur- 
low Beanio." 



NOTES 319 

Page 101. *Bk. I. 11. 227 ff. This fictitious feature of Wallace's 
career was long kept in memory and reappears in the late 
Scottish ballads of Gude Wallace, a circumstance which led 
Professor Child to remark: " The portions of Blind Harry's 
poem out of which these ballads were made were perhaps 
themselves composed from older ballads, and the restitution 
of the lyrical form may have given us something not alto- 
gether unlike what was sung in the fifteenth, or even the 
fourteenth, century." Regarding which, we may say that if 
this disguising of a hero in woman's clothes was embodied 
in an early ballad, and it most likely was, we need not con- 
clude that that ballad concerned Wallace. Though there 
certainly were popular tales about Wallace's exploits, as 
Wyntoun attests. Blind Harry's book is so obviously a con- 
coction of all sorts of unauthentic material that he may 
have been the first to attach this device to the famous war- 
rior. As Professor Child points out {Ballads, III, 266, 191), 
the disguise as a woman occurs in other outlaw stories, 
e.g., Eustace le Moine (ed. Michel, p. 43) and Robin Hood 
and the Bishop. 

Page 102. *" DistaflF," an Old Norse word. It is not necessary 
to believe that the humor of the passage is the poet's own. 

Page lOS. fBk. IV, 11. 763 ff. 

Page 102. XGrimnismdl, st. 47, and in the passage from Snorri 
cited above, p. 100 note.* Child says (I, 67) : " Originally 
and properly, perhaps, only the bad member of this mythical 
pair is blind; but it would not be at all strange that later 
tradition, which confuses and degrades so much in the old 
mythology, should transfer blindness to the good-natured 
one, and give rise to the anomalous Billie Blind." 

Page 102. § Child, Ballads, I, 279; cf. the dvergar of Old Norse 
mythology. 

Page 103. *The Dutchman Gisbertus Voetius, in his Z)e 
Miraculis, speaks " De ilUs quos nostrates appellant 
heeldwit et blinde belien, a quibus nocturna visa videri atque 
ex iis arcana revelari putant " (quoted Child). 



320 NOTES 

Page 103. fSee Brand, Popular Antiquities (1870), III, 54. 
The book appeared in 1777. Bugge, who connects the old 
Norse Loki with Lucifer, notes: " The second of Loki's 
brothers is named Helblindi. In like manner the devil, in 
the Middle Ages, is often called blind, and the Anglo- 
Saxons used many names for the devil that begin with 
helle-" (Bugge-Schofield, Home of the Eddie Poems, p. Iv). 
Helblindi, one may add, was a name that Odin says he 
bore {Grimnismdl, st. 46). The plant usually called " the 
devil's snuflfbox " is also called " blindman's ball," or 
" blindman's bellows." 

Bishop Corbet, in an Elegy on Bishop Ravis (quoted 
Centiu'y Dictionary), wrote of 

Ould Harry- ruflBans, bankerupts, southsayers. 
And youth whose cousenage is as old as theirs. 

Harry-ruffians, with their feUow soothsayers, were probably 
related to Blind Harry and Billie Blin. (Was the " ruflSan " 
originally Ruffinus, the devil ?) On cosenage, see Reginald 
Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft. — To the same class be- 
longed the popular figures Harry Gad and Jack Harry. 
Twice (in Ware the Hauke and Magnificence) Skelton re- 
fers to Jacke Harys, or Jacke Hare. Lydgate wrote a poem 
entitled Jack Hare, whom he pictures as " a froward knave," 
" a sluggard," " his sleeves right thredbare," " with louring 
face nodding and slumbering." — John (or Jock) Blunt is 
the designation of a clownish fellow mentioned by Dunbar 
in The Tua Marrit Wemen and the Wedo, 11. 142 f., and by 
Polwart in the Flyting, ii. 784, 789: " vyld, widdered, mis- 
ordered, confedered with fiends " (N.B.) — " Blak Belly " 
and " Bawsy Brown " are mentioned as devilish sprites in 
The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1. 30. There were 
various forms of their names, like Belly Brassy (Laing, 
Select Remains, p. 218), etc. Cf. Scott's Minstrelsy, 1803, 
II, 32 n. Together with " Ballybrass and Belly," as 
names of those at a noisy assembly, the author of The Tale 
of Colkelbie Sow (Laing, pp. 248 f .) introduces " the Hary- 
hurlere husty." — Dunbar also mentions Jonet the Widow 



NOTES 3U 

(riding on a broom, with a wonderful company of witches) 
along with Simon Magus, Mahoun, and Merlin, in The 
Birth of Antichrist, 11. 34-35 (Schipper, p. 218). 
Page 103. JTliere were various otherworld figures of suspi- 
cious omen who were conceived by the popular imagination 
as both naked and hairy. See, for example, what Keightley 
tells (pp. 402 ff.) of the Ph^Tinoderee (" Hairy One ") of 
Manx tradition, who was indignant when clothes were left 
him as a reward for services. Compare the ballad of The 
Brownie of Blednoch by William Nicholson, the Galloway 
poet. Ben Jonson, in his Sad Shepherd, introduces a hairy 
sprite called Puck-hairy. It may be that some thought 
Blind Harry was originally Blind Hairy. See Jamieson's 
Dictionary, s.v. Blind Harie. 

Page 103. §See Dr. Cranstoun's note on this passage, pp. 
324 f. 

Page 104. *Cliild, Ballads, I, 361. Cf. Chambers, Popular 
Rhymes of Scotland, 1870, pp. 89 ff.; Tlie Complaynt of 
Scotland, ed. Murray, p. 63; Motherwell, The Ettin o' 
Sillarwood. 

Page 10^. fLaing, Select Remains, pp. 271 ff. Cf. Scott's Min- 
strelsy, 1803, II, 198. The story is a curious transformation 
of an old bit of faery lore, with a blending of classical story. 
The Carling, because she refused the advances of one Bla- 
sour, was forced to defend herself as best she could against 
the king of faery, who came with a host of elves to besiege 
her. Finally, she turned herself into a sow and went " grimt- 
lyng over the Greek Sea," married Mahoun and became 
Queen of Jews! (One might conjecture that Mahoun in the 
beginning was Maelgwyn and his city Caer Seon, Segon- 
tium, wliich, in the story where Maelgwyn makes a crowd of 
poets and musicians swim to it from the Son of Don's land, 
Mona, was interpreted as Zion; see Rh5's, Hibbert Lectures, 
pp. 271-273). " All this langour," the poet explains, in the 
same mood as the author of King Berdok, " for luve be- 
foirtymis fell "! He would probably have alleged no better 
authority for his story than that offered by the writer of 



322 NOTES 

the similarly roistering tale of Colkelbie Sow (ed. Laing, 
Select Remains, pp. 234 ff.). set in Ayrshire, which then en- 
joyed extravagant popularity — his great-granddame, the 
beldame, old Gurgunnald. 

Scho knew the lyfe of mony faderis aid. 
Notable gestis of peax and weiris in storye. 
The Colkelbie boar, it may be said, had a varied experience, 
for he is said to have fought valiantly with Wade and 
Meleager, and was hunted by Diana, the King of Sidon, and 
Eglamor of Artois. 

Page 105. *VII, 61 ff. He may have derived the episode from 
tradition. See Bower, Scotichronicon, II, 170 (Neilson, 
p. 101). 

Page 106. *Dr. Moir passes this scene by almost in silence. 
He does not discuss its authenticity, but attributes it to 
Blair. Concerning " this Master John " in the text, he says 
(p. 416) : " This use of this would seem to indicate that 
Harry had Blair's work before him"! But on Blair, see 
Chapter IX. 

Page 106. fSee Rupert Taylor, The Political Prophecy in 
England, New York, 1911, pp. 58 ff. 

Page 107. * Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, Letter V. 
(On Thomas the Rhymer, see Letter IV.) The passage re- 
minds one of Plato's words in the Republic (II, 364, trans. 
Jowett,) : " Mendicant prophets go to rich men's doors and 
persuade them that they have a power committed to them 
by the gods of making an atonement for a man's own or 
his ancestor's sins by sacrifices or charms, with rejoicings 
or feasts; and they promise to harm an enemy, whether 
just or imjust at a small cost; with magic arts and incanta- 
tions, binding heaven, as they say, to execute their will. 
And the poets are the authorities to whom they appeal." 
They cite Hesiod and Homer, " and they produce a host 
of books written by Musaeus and Orpheus, who were 
children of the Moon and the Muses — that is what they 
say — according to which they perform their ritual." 



NOTES 323 

Page 111. *0n Tuesday, April 27, 1490, the only entries are: 
*' to the cobill man of Cambuskynnell quhen the King past 
owre" (5 sh.); " at the Kingis commande, to Blinde Hary " 
(18 sh.); " to Qwariour, ane of the gunnaris, at the Kingis 
commande " (18 sh.); " to Mussche, currour, to pass with 
a letter of the Kingis for the Lorde Glammis " (5 sh.) — 
I, 133. 

On New Year's Day, 1490 [-1], the only entries are: " to 
the trumpatis, v vnicornis " (£4.10); " to Quhyg and Jok 
trumpat " (18 sh.) ; " to Jolm of Wardlaw and Wil3eam 
myne eme " (36 sh.); " to the portaris " (36 sh.); " to Jame 
Lam of the Kingis pantre " (36 sh.) ; " to the isschares of 
the haw dure " (18 sh.); " to Blind Hary " (18 sh.); — " to 
Berclaw " (18 sh.); " to Domynico " (9 sh.) — p. 174. 

On April 5, 1491, the following entries: " to Johne of 
Wardlaw and Wil^eam myne eme" (36 sh.); "to the 
trumpatis, " iiij vnicornis" (£ 3.12); "to Blind Hary" 
(18 sh.); " to Bennat " (18 sh.); " til a harper " (18 sh.); 
" to Sallirman, to by him claythis " (9 sh.) — p. 176. 
(Bennat was a fiddler; see p. 326). 

On September 14, 1491, sole entry: " to Blind Hary, at the 
Kingis command " (5 sh.) — p. 181. 

On January 2, 1491 [-2], the following entries: " to Schir 
Thomas Galbretht, Jok Goldsmyth and Crafurd, for the 
singyn of a ballat to the King in the mornyng, iij vnicornis " 
(£2.14); " to Blind Hary " (9 sh.); " to Martyn M'Bretne. 
clareschaw " (10 sh.); "til ane oder Ersche clareschaw " 
(5 sh.) ; " to Scot the currour, to pass with letteres to arest 
the schippis at the west sey " (10 sh.) — p. 184. 
Page 112. *Ballads, HI, 55 f.. Ill, 21 f. In the year 1417, ac- 
cording to Stowe, " one, by his counterfeit name called Fryer 
Tucke, with many other malefactors, committed many rob- 
beries in the counties of Surrey and Sussex, whereupon the 
king sent out his writs for their apprehension " (Ballade, 
III, 41). 
Page 112. jSir David Lyndsay (in his Testament and Com- 
flaynt of the Papyngo) mentions Quintayn Schaw by his 
first name only : 



824 NOTES 

Quintyn, Merser, Rowle, Henderson, Hay and Holland 
Thocht thay be deid, thair libellis bene levand. 

Page 112. XAccounts, I, 99, 270, 339. 

Page 113. *Rendered ' quondam progenitori nostro et nobis in 
scrifluris literarum nostrarwm Sandissimo patri nostro Pape 
et diversis regihus, principibus et magnatibus ultra regnum 
nostrum missis, et expensas per eundem in pergamino, papiro, 
cera rubea et alba, ac alios sumptus in dictis Uteris et scrip- 
turis ultramarinis factis, emptis et sustentis el pro toto tem- 
pore vite sue faciendis et sustentandis ' (No. 269; cited Dick- 
son, Accounts, I, p. c note). 

Page 113. jOn Stobo, see Laing, II, 361, 427-429; Small's 
Dunbar, pp. cclxvii f. Stobo is mentioned by Kennedy, 
Flyting, st. 12; " gar Stobo for thy life protest "; cf. Schip- 
per, p. 156; Mackay's note (I, cclxvii f.). The last pay- 
ment of his pension is entered in 1504-05, when he is spoken 
of as deceased before July 13, 1505 {Exchequer Rolls, no. 
330). 

Page IH. *0n the whole matter, see Introduction to Eger and 
Grine, in the Percy Folio MS., ed. Hales and Furnivall, I, 
343, 352. It is interesting to note that " Grime," the name 
of the otherworld warrior in the oldest version of the story, 
appears as " Graham " in a later version, perhaps in mem- 
ory of the famous friendship of Wallace and Graham (Ibid., 
I, 345). On such nicknames as that borne by Archibald 
Bell-the-Cat, see Veitch, History and Poetry of the Scottish 
Border, new ed., 1893, I, 260. A picturesque figure of the 
sixteenth century, William Burnet, was known as " the 
Hoolet (Howlat, owl) of Barns," because he was supposed 
to see as well in the night as in the daylight. His friend Wil- 
liam Veitch was known as " the Deil of Dawyck," getting 
his sobriquet because it was believed that no one ever rose 
up from under his sword-strokes (Ibid., II, 44 f.). 

Page II4. ■\HiM. Eccles., Bologna. 1627, p. 496. See Mont- 
gomery's Poems, ed. S.T.S., Introd., p. xiv. 

Page 114. JThere has been some discussion as to whether 
Jack Raker, cited as a " maker " by Skelton, Nicholas 



NOTES 325 

Udall, and others, was a real person. Pretty certainly Dyce 
was right in thinking (in opposition to Collier) that " he 
was an imaginary person, whose name has become prover- 
bial." (See Skelton's Works, ed. Dyce, I, 123; II, 186.) 

Martin Parker wrote a ballad entitled The Poet's Blind 
Mans Bough [Bujf], or Have among you my Blind Harpers, 
London, 1641. The sub-title was proverbial, and used in 
many Elizabethan ballads, as my friend Dr. Hyder E. 
Rollins has shown me by much evidence. Harpers were even 
then proverbially blind. 

CHAPTER VII 

Page 120. *Bk. VII, ch. 1-2; trans. Giles, Old English Chron- 
icles. 

Page 120. fVII, 9, 17. 

Page 121. *XI, 1443 ff.; cf. VIII, 645 ff. 

Page 121. fit is hard to see how Dr. Mackay could have 
written in the Dictionary of National Biography: " The poet 
apologizes for departing on one point from Blair, and the 
reader is sensible throughout that the poet is translating 
rather than producing original matter." — " The poet 
speaks in his own person at the close, and may have dic- 
tated it to the transcriber." — His blindness " makes his 
poem a wonderful feat of memory " ! 

Page 122. *XI, 1431-32. Henry Morley {English Writers, 
VT, 250) commenting on a " homely touch " in one of the 
poet's stories (pretty certainly borrowed!), calls it "char- 
acteristic of Blind Harry's way of telling his adventures as 
a rural man to rustic audiences." 

Page 123. *0p. cit., pp. 45 f. 

Page 123. ^Franklin's Tale, Prologue, 11. 44 ff. Dr. Giles 
says {Cambridge History, II, 108) : " The very defects of 
Harry's poem commended it to the vulgar. It professes to 
be the work of a bur el man, one without special equipment 
as a scholar, though it is clear that Harry could at least 
read Latin." 



326 NOTES 

Page 123. JPrinted in the Bannatyne Miscellany, II, 161 ff., 
also recently along with The Kingis Qvair, ed. Alex. Law- 
son, London, 1910, pp. 104 ff. (St. Andrews University 
Publication No. VIII). The poem is preserved in a Selden 
MS., with the Troilus and some minor pieces of Chaucer, 
as well as The Kingis Quair. The MS. seems to have be- 
longed to some branch of the family of the Sinclairs, Earls 
of Caithness. 

Miss Gray, in her edition of Lancelot of the Lailc (S.T.S., 
1912, p. xviii), agrees with Prof. Skeat {Scottish Historical 
Review, Oct. 1910) that these two poems are by the same 
author. On p. xx she repeats her suggestion, first advanced 
in the Scottish Historical Review, April, 1911, that the author 
was Vidas Achinlek, a Scotsman resident in France, Steward 
in the household of Louis XII, not James Auchinleck, 
Chantor of Dornoch; " but," she adds, " both claims are 
purely speculative." 

The author of the Lancelot, likewises poses as modest; 

Quhen that thai here my febil negligens, 
That empit is, and bare of eloquens, 
Of discressioline, and ek of Retoryk; 
The metire and the cuning both elyk 
So fere discording frome perfeccioune; 
Quhilk I submyt to the correcioune 
Of yaim the quhich that is discret and wyss. 
And enterit is of loue in the seruice. (179 £f.) 

His work was to " endite " with " lusty terms "; he appeals 
to Virgil, master of " eloquence " and " rhetoric " (329). 

Page 12J^. *L1. 185 ff.; cf. 310 ff.: " Supposs of wit I empty be 
and bare." The author of a sixteenth-century poem on 
Flodden Field, all in prating of Parnassus and appealing to 
the Muses, talks of his " simple, rude and rugged rhyme " 
(ed. Weber, 1808, 1. 18). 

Page 12Jt. fLl. 245 ff. The Troilus stanza is also used in the 
Quare, 317-463. Blind Harry has thirteen stanzas of eight 
lines each (VI, 1-104) of the type used in the Monk's tale: 



NOTES 327 

also a nine-line stanza (II, 171-179) with the scheme aab 
aab abb, nearly like that in the Compleynt of Mars. 

Page 125. *II, 216 ff. 

Page 125. jXI, 1109 flF. 

Page 127. *IV, 336 fif. 

Page 127. fSkeat, Mod. Lang. Quarterly, Nov. 1897; Brown, 
oj). cit., pp. 42-46. The list of Chaucerian borrowings might 
be considerably increased. 

Page 127. JVII, 175 ff. Cf. Knighfs TaZe, A 2450-69; Troilus, 
II, 99, 105. 

Page 127. § IV, 735-736; cf. Troilus, I, 15 ff. For "Venus 
werkes," cf. the Wife of Bath's Prologue, 11. 707-708. 

Page 128. *V, 579 ff.; VI, 17 ff. 

Page 128. fLl. 1951 ff.; cf. Destruction of Troy, 11. 13263 ff. 

Page 129. *V, 217 ff. Dr. Moir writes (p. 400) apropos of the 
passage: " This apparently indicates that Harry was not 
a member of some religious house. So in XI, 1461, he calls 
himself a burel man. Yet he shows himself by no means an 
uneducated man; and he may have been connected with 
some monastery without being in holy orders. Indeed at 
the time he lived he could hardly have possessed the educa- 
tion he did unless he had been brought up in some religious 
house." This hardly needs comment; but we may note that 
Irving long ago suggested {Lives of the Scottish Poets, 1804, 
I, 340 ff.) that the Wallace-poet may have been a friar. 
" The canon law," he explained, " did not exclude a blind 
man from holy orders," and " the supposition that Henry 
was at once a minstrel and a friar implies nothing absurd." 

Page 129. flV, 186. 

Page 129. JV, 111 ff. 

Page 129. § LI. 489 ff. 

Page 130. *L1. 329 ff. 



328 NOTES 

Page 130. fVIII, 961 fiF. 

Page 130. XlL, 351-359. 

Page 131. *See below, pp. 170 ff. 

Page 131. fThe Wallace seems, indeed, to have begun with a 
Latin invocation: 

Ihesu saluator, tu sis michi auxiliator 

Ad finem dignum perdue librum atque benignum. 

These Unes are usually omitted altogether or regarded 
merely as the work of the scribe. But Brown points out 
(p. 35) that they are an integral part of the poem, and com- 
pares them with the opening of the Geste of Troy: 

Now, God, of ])i grace graunt me \>i helpe 
And wysshe me with wyt ]>is werke for to end! 

The following lines in both poems, referring to the deeds of 
noble ancestors which men were apt to " overslide," are 
closely parallel. 

Page 133. *Cf. Kittredge, Chaucer's Lollius {Harvard Studies 
in Classical Philology, XXVIII, 55 flf.). 

Page 13i. *VII, 890 ff. 

Page 13A. fVII, 221. 

Page 13^. f Compare what is said of Auchinleck (V, 469 ff., 
VI, 337). One wonders whether the fact that the Charteris 
family (one of whom was to print the Wallace) claimed an- 
cestry from a Knight Longaville, had anything to do with 
the introduction of a personage of that name into the poem 
(XI, 1146 ff.). Neilson (p. 95) thinks the figure was bor- 
rowed from Barbour. " Thus, by a species of transmigration 
of souls, Bruce's ICnight of France, with his praises of 
Bruce's worthiness, passes into an earlier existence as the 
comrade of Wallace and extoUer of his prowess " (Bruce, 
IX, 400; Wallace, IX, 232). Neilson (p. 95) gives other in- 
stances — Ramsay, Seton, Douglas, Comyn, Boyd — of 
men transferred from followers of Bruce to followers of 
Wallace, and we do not hear of any one protesting on that 



NOTES 329 

account. Even Bishop Sinclair is transferred to Wallace 
and made one of his chief counsellors, though Barbour says 
Bruce called Sinclair " his own bishop." Blind Harry rep- 
resents Wallace as appointing Sinclair to the bishopric, 
though in fact he was only elected in 1309. — The family 
of Fitz Hugh could not have been gratified by what Blind 
Harry wrote of Fehew. The poet evidently hated Fitz 
Hugh because he was a leader of the English army that in- 
vaded Scotland in his own time, and gave him a despicable 
ancestor. — We may note that the Howlat is really a Doug- 
las poem, because of the relation of Holland to the family. 

Page 135. *Brown, op. cit., pp. 69 S. 

Page 137. *VI, 341 flf. Mr. Neilson (p. 107) points out the 
likeness of this account of the abuse of heralds with the 
episode in Quentin Durward (ch. 33), wliich was connected 
with the actual circumstance that a false herald was sent 
to Edward IV by Louis XI in 1475. See Hall's Chronicle, 
pp. 311 ff. On heralds, see Sir Gilbert Hay's Buke of the 
Law of Army s. Part IV, ch. 142 (ed. J. H. Stevenson, I, 281). 

Page 138. *VIII, 1685 flf. 

Page 139. *VIII, 1494 ff. 

Page HO. *VII, 397 ff. The status of the Knights of Rhodes 
was a matter of debate at the time, but obviously not among 
" ruryk folk." 

Page 1^0. \Buke of the Howlat (ed. Amours, Scottish Allitera- 
tive Poems) 11. 577 ff. 

Page HO. JSpenser later, by way of reminiscence, wrote con- 
cerning Florimel's wedding: 

To tell the glorie of the feast that day. 

The goodly service, the devicefull sights, 

The bridegromes state, the brides most rich aray. 

The pride of ladies, and the worth of knights. 

The royall banquets, and the rare delights. 

Were worke fit for an herauld, not for me. 

{Faery Queeii, V, iii, 3.) 



330 NOTES 

Chaucer has a good deal to say about heralds in the 
Knight's Tale, and shortens the description of the feast of 
Theseus with the remark: 

Of al this make I now no mencioun, 

But al th' effect, that thinketh me the beste. 

Page 1^1. *Queene Elizabethes Achademy, E.E.T.S., E.S., 
No. VIII, 1869, pp. 93 ff.; 11. 196 ff., 245 ff. The editor 
thinks the poem is only a copy. 

Page U2. *Printed, Edinburgh, 1821. 

Page llf2. fLyndsay, singularly like Blind Harry, wrote also 
with mock modesty. At the opening of his Dreme, we read; 
With ornate termis thocht I can nocht express 
This sempyll mater, lot laik of eloquence. 

Again, in the prologue to his Papyngo: 

Quharefor, because myne mater bene so rude 
Of sentence, and of rethorike denude 

To rurall folke myne dyting bene directit. 

And in the envoy: 

Beseikand yow excuse myne ignorance 
And rude indyte, quhilk is nocht tyll avance. 
And to the quair, I geve commandiment, 
Mak no repair quhair poetis bene present. 

Sir Walter Scott introduces the " Herald-bard," Lyon 
King at Arms, into Marmion (Canto IV) and makes him 
tell a tale. 

Page IJfS. JPp. 16 S., 19. " As the story is related the exploits 
of the hero range over a very wide territory comprehending 
nearly the whole lowlands of Scotland, a considerable tract 
of country within the Highland line, the northern counties 
of England, and several provinces of France. The poet's 
acquaintance with these several areas is remarkable, thougli 
unequal. Of the wilds of Lennox and Argyll, for example, 
he writes like one who knows the country more by report 
than from actual experience. Not so, however, of the low- 
lands of Scotland. There he is evidently on very familiar 
ground. He conducts liis hero from one place to another by 



NOTES 331 

highways or byways just as occasion requires. He uner- 
ringly strikes the way in all his journeyings. He writes like 
one whose eyes are very wide open indeed." " The place 
names are fitted into the long metrical narrative without 
the slightest appearance of difficulty. They occur always in 
strict geographical sequence. Frequently indeed we can dis- 
cern minute touches intended doubtless to aggrandise the 
description, and quite unimportant for the story proper, 
which certainly indicate uncommon knowledge on the part 
of the narrator." 

Page US. *See Accounts (ed. Thomas Dickson, Edinburgh, 
1877) from 1489 to 1497, 1, 122, 124, 128, 129, 176, 178, 179, 
183, 340, 368. Cf. " Widderspune that tald talis to the 
King " (I, 307; cf. I, 326, 330). 

Page 1^3. fLangland writes {Piers Phwrtian, B Text, XIV, 
24 f.: 
Shall none heraude ne harpoure have a fairere garnement 
Than Haukyn the actyf man and thou do by my techyng. 

Activa-vita calls himself a minstrel, an apprentice of Piers 
Plowman. He was about as good a pattern of that figure (as 
described by Wycliffe: " Whanne men travailen forworldli 
goodis, and kepen hem in rightwisnesse ") as Chaucer's 
Pardoner of what he should have been. On various types 
of minstrelsy, see Piers Plowman, C. Text, XM!, 194 fif. 
See Skeat's notes, II, 199 f. 

Irving (I, 346, note) quotes a passage in the heraldic col- 
lection of Sir David Lyndsay: " It is to understand yat na 
menstrale sail weir his lord or princis armes as ane herrald 
dois," etc., and adds (p. 347) : " Mr. Pinkerton, without 
any precise reference to ancient authorities, has affirmed 
that in 1474 minstrels were classed with knights and heralds 
and authorized to wear silken apparel." 

Page lU- *Ed. F. Michel, London, 1883. 

Page lU. fEd. E. Charriere, Paris, 1839. 

Page H5. *See Schofield, Chivalry in English Literature, 
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1915, pp. 30 S. 



332 NOTES 

Page U5. flV, 184, VII, 736. 

Page 146. *Here his opinions are much Uke those of Chaucer. 
Cf . the latter's discussion of poverty at the end of the Wife 
of Bath's Tale, 321 ff. Cf. also the opinions of Burns, who 
was devoted to Blind Harry. 

Page 1^6. \Percy Folio MS., ed. Hales and Furnivall, I, 233. 

Page 14^6. |Various conjectures have been made as to where 
the poet was born. Mr. Brown says: " I am not aware that 
it has ever been remarked that his domicile appears to have 
been in or near Linlithgow. At any rate the royal largesse 
was made to him on every occasion at Linlithgow when the 
young monarch came to reside at the Palace there." Mr. 
Neilson, on the other hand, gives reasons for thinking that 
" the poet had a peculiar interest in the town of Perth, and 
also in its institutions." But what about Ayr ? From the 
numerous mentions of that place in his poem, one might 
surmise that he was born or lived there. He apparently 
knew what he was talking about when he wrote: " This use 
has been oft in the town of Ayr." Perhaps, like Wallace ever, 
" right sore he longed the town of Ayr to see." Mr. ^neas 
Mackay remarks that the dialect of the poem is that of 
Lothian, and adds: " He [Blind Harry] probably belonged 
[o Lothian, for otherwise he would not have been known to 
Major in his infancy, wliich was passed in the neighborhood 
of North Berwick." But Major does not say that in his in- 
fancy he knew Blind Harry, but only that the poem on 
Wallace was written in liis infancy. Until we know more 
about the author, we need not worry about his birthplace. 



CHAPTER Vin 

Page H7. *Essays and Studies, I, 109 S. 

Page H9. *" It appears from a letter written in February, 
1485-6, by Thomas Betanson to Sir Robert Plumpton, 
that prophesying was in that year made felony " (Brand's 
Popular Antiquities, ed. Hazlitt, IH, 56). 



NOTES 333 

Page 150. *The Whole Prophecie of Scotland, England, and 
some part of France, and Denmark, Prophesied bee meruel- 
lous Merling, Beid, Bertlington, Thomas Rymour, Wald- 
haue, EUraine, Banester, and Sibbilla, all according in one. 
Containing many strange and meruelous things. Printed by 
Robert Waldegraue, Printer to the King's most Excellent 
Maiestie, Anno 1603, Reprinted for the Bannatyne Club, 
1833. 

The book contains also a prophecy attributed to Gil das; 
and " The Scotts Prophecie in Latine." The Whole Proph- 
esie was reprinted with additions by Andro Hart in 1615. 
Here the Scot's Prophecy in Latin is accompanied by an 
English translation. 

The practice seems to have spread to Iceland. Keightley 
notes (p. 161) that " there was a book of prophecies called 
the Kruckspd, or Prophecy of Kruck, a man who is said to 
have lived in the 15th century. It treated of the change of 
religion and other matters said to have been revealed to him 
by the Dwarfs. Johannseus says it was forged by Brynjulf 
Svenonius in or about the year 1660." (See Finni Johannoei 
Hist. Eccles. Islandiae, Copenhagen, 1774, II, 370, n.) 
Keightley misinterprets Jonsson, to the prejudice of a man 
worthy of all honor — Bishop Brynjolf Sveinsson, dis- 
coverer of the Elder Edda. What Jonsson really says is that 
the prophecy was written by an encomiast of the Bishop 
(" ab inepto quodam Brynjulfi Svenonis, viri laude meliore 
digni, praecone "). 

Page 151. *The Political Prophecy in England, New York, 
1911, For a book on contemporary political prophecy, see 
Father Herbert Thurston, The War and the Prophets 
(Burns & Gates), 1915. 

Page 151 . jThe author of the Complaynt of Scotland, in 1529, 
found it necessary to warn his countrymen against " di- 
uerse prophane prophesies of merljTie, and vther aid cor- 
ruptit vaticinaris, the quhilkis hes affermit in there rusty 
ryme, that Scotland and ingland sal be vnder arie prince," 
to which " the inglismen gifis ferme credit." (Quoted J. A. 
H. Murray, Thomas of Erceldoune, p. xxx.) 



334 NOTES 

Page 152. *Bk. II, ch. 4. On incubi and succubi, see Reginald 
Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft. According to Boece, these 
wicked spirits were exceedingly troublesome in Scotland in 
1480. 

Page 152. fBk. II, ch. 5. He discusses prophecies of Merlin 
in Bk. IV, ch. 8; Bk. IV, ch. 19; Bk. V, ch. 7. He mentions 
another " old prophecy " on p. 273, gives a vision of Ban- 
ister on p. 223, and repeats without objection the following 
story (p. 204) : " Our chroniclers here tell a story of how 
an English hermit was witness of several souls taking their 
flight from purgatory to heaven, and how one of these was 
Wallace; and as he marvelled much how this could be, see- 
ing that Wallace had shed man's blood, he got for answer 
that it was in a just cause, and when fighting for his country's 
freedom, that he had slain others." This story Major found 
in Blind Harry's poem (XI, 1238 ff.). 

Page 153. *Bk. IV, ch. XII; trans. Constable, pp. 190-191. 

Page 153. fSee C. K. Sharpe, Historical Account of Witchcraft 
in Scotland, 1884, pp. 30-34; cf. Tytler, History of Scot- 
land, ed. 1887, II, 214. 

Page 154-. *Wyntoun (Bk. VIII, ch. 31), who makes Thomas 
predict the battle of Kylblene in 1335, remarks: 

He sayd it in his prophecy 
Bot how he wyst it, wes ferly. 

Page 15^. fSee Neilson, Essays and Studies, I, pp. 97-98. 

Page 15^^. JBk. II, 1. 86. Barbour also believed in the vatic- 
inal tapestry made by St. Margaret; see Taylor, p. 72. 

Page 164- §Bk. I, 11. 351-352. Lord Percy's men were under 
the influence of prophecies. 

In ilka part thai war gretly agast 

Throw prophesye that thai had herd befor (III, 26-27). 

Lord Percy himself remarks in another place : 
Our clerkys sayis he sail ger mony de (V, 508). 



NOTES 335 

Page IBJ^. llBk. II, 11. 346-349. Note Blind Harry's remarks: 
Thomas Rimour in to the Faile was than. 
With the mynystir, quhilk was a worthi man; 
He wsyt offt to that religious place. 
The peple demyt of witt mekill he can; 
And so he told, thocht at thai blis or ban, 
Quhilk hapnyt suth in mony diuers cace. (II, 288 ff .) 

Dr. Moir remarks innocently (p. xxix) : " That true Thomas 
lived at this time is very probable, but that he uttered such 
a prophecy about a comparatively unknown young man of 
eighteen can only be credited upon the supposition that he 
was a veritable prophet." 

Page 165. *Bk. XI, 1. 959. 

Page 155. jP- W. Joyce {Social History of Ireland, II, 528) 
writes : " The ancient Irish had a universal implicit belief 
in the prophecies of their native saints. On the eve of a 
battle one of the leaders — in order to encourage his men — 
was pretty sure to bring up and read for the army some 
prophecy, generally by the patron saint of the tribe, re- 
ferring to the coming battle, in which victory was predicted 
for his side. . . . Before the Battle of the Yellow Ford, 
where Hugh O'Neill inflicted a disastrous defeat on the 
English in 1598, he caused his hereditary ollave O'Clery to 
read aloud for his army a prophecy of St. Columkille, made 
a thousand years before, predicting victory for the Irish 
army." Joyce points out that most or all of these prophecies 
were forgeries. 

Page 156. * Fenian Poems, ed. John O'Daly (Transactions of 
the Ossianic Society for 1856), Dublin, 1859, pp. 17 S. 

Page 158. *" Inimicitias Othinus serit " (Saxo, p. 142, ed. 
1644). 

Page 158. \Hist(yria Danica, Bk. VII (trans. Elton, pp. 279 S.) 

Page 159. *Ed. Madden, 11. 17130 ff. See Grundtvig, I, 274; 
Child, I, 67. 

Page 169. fll, 5. 

Page 169. |VII, 235-237. 



336 NOTES 

Page 160. *Eyre-Todd, Early Scottish Poetry, pp. 181, 187. 

Page 161. *Alfred Nutt {Waifs and Strays, TV, xxxiv f.) called 
attention to the remarkable parallels between the utter- 
ances placed in the mouth of Oisin and those assigned to 
the Welsh warrior poet Llywarch Hen, and also to the fact 
that it is in the ballad, not the prose, forms of the Ossianic 
legend that the pagan spirit prevails. " The note of scorn 
and aversion," he writes (Voyage of Bran, I, 218), " is not 
lacking in Irish mythic literature towards the milder, blood- 
less charms of the new faith, though the grounds upon 
which this aversion is based appeal more forcibly to us than 
is the case with the protest of classic or Scandinavian Pagan- 
ism ; but in the Irish mind alone have the two worlds sought 
to kiss each other, nowhere else has the Christian monk 
heard the wailing cry of the birds of Faery as they await the 
advent of the Apostle." And again (I, 235) : " The stage of 
Fenian romance, represented by the Agallamh na Senorach, 
in which Caoilte, last of the old hero race, is a dutiful fol- 
lower of Patrick, has passed away from the popular con- 
sciousness, whilst this still retains the vivid outline of the 
defiant pagan, Oisin, reviling the Christian saint, and la- 
menting the pride and glory of his youth. In vain did some 
ninth or tenth century poet picture the bird-flock of the 
Land of Promise churning the waters milk-white in their 
passionate appeal to the national saint; the people of Ire- 
land are mindful to this very day of songs and warblings 
older than the cleric's bell, and wholly unaflFected by its 
tones." 

Page 161. \Dean of Lisviore's Book, p. 85. 

Page 161. XWilliam Sharp. A Memoir Compiled by his Wife, 

London, 1910, pp. 227-228. 
Page 162. *Ibid., p. 231. 

Page 163. * Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, 11. 109 ff. Skelton, 
who had much in common with Dvmbar, sneers at Cardinal 
Wolsey in much the same manner, in his Why Come Ye Not 
to Court: 



NOTES 337 

God saue hys noble grace 

And graunt him a place 

Endlesse to dwel 

With the deuyll of hell 

For and he were there 

We nede neuer feere 

Of the fendys blake 

For I vndertake 

He wolde so brag and crake 

That he wolde than make 

The deuyls to quake. 

Page 16I(.. *" Scottish Influence in British Literature " — Es- 
says Biographical and Critical, Cambridge, 1856, p. 408. 

Page 16^. ^Characteristics of English Poets, 2d ed., 1885 (first 
ed., 1874), p. 69. 

Page 165. *Scottish Review, XXII, 177. 

Page 166. *I, 7 (pp. 40-41). 

Page 167. *IV, 19 (p. 223). 

Page 167. ^Chronicle, Bk. ix, ch. 20 (ed. Laing, III, 72). 

Page 168. *Bannatyne Miscellany, III, 175. Charteris's ad- 
dress to the reader is found in his second edition (1594), 
but may be assumed to have stood in the first (1570), the 
only known copy of which is imperfect, lacking title-page 
and preliminary matter. 



CHAPTER IX 

Page 170. *Bk. XI, 11. 1410 £f. As early, it appears, as 1620, a 
printer of the Wallace tells the reader that the poem was 
" written in Latin by Master John Blair, Chaplain to Wal- 
lace, and turned into Scots metre by one called Blind Hary, 
in the days of IQng James the Fourth." " The Rev. John 
Blair " has become a fixed figure in Scottish annals. 

Page 170. fThis seems, at first, like a strange attribute. Dr. 
Moir suggests (Glossary, s.v. sauage) : " Perhaps it is for 
O. F. sgavant, with termination from O. S. sage, wise, 



338 NOTES 

learned." There may be a corruption of the text; all one 
needs for the sense is " sage," and this is all there is in some 
early prints (" als right sage "); but the author was not 
very careful about his adjectives; he applies " cruel " fre- 
quently to Wallace and the Scots (e.g., VTI, 998), and he 
speaks of Longaweill " that ay was full sawage " (IX, 457). 
Of the five thousand followers of Sir John Norton (who 
" was known worthy and wight,") we read that they were 
" welle garnest and sawage " (VIII, 813). 

Page 171. *Mr. J. T. T. Brown (pp. 50 ff.) has made it prob- 
able that the poet referred to a " Thomas Gray " as another 
authority contemporary with Wallace because the father 
of the author of the Scalacronica (written ca. 1362) took 
part in the Wallace struggles. Both he and his son, the 
chronicler, were called Thomas Gray, Mr. Brown further 
conjectures (though with less plausibility) that he was 
called " parson of Liberton " because he may have held 
" some fortalice like Oggs Castle or Whyte Castle in 
Liberton parish." 

Page 171. fV, 534 ff.; XI, 1424 f. 

Page 171. JIX, 1233 ff.; IX, 1539; cf. VI, 315-316. 

Page 171. §" In Wallace buk brewyt it with the layff " (IX, 
1943-1944). See Brown, pp. 50-51, who justly applies to 
him, after considering this situation, the brocard falsum in 
unofalsum in omnibus. 

Wallace, we may note, was described by Fordun (at A.D. 
1297) as " thin in the flanks," an attribute attributed by 
Dante to Michael Scot. 

Page 171. ||X, 793, 893-898. In the following passage. Dr. 
Moir reads " I " instead of " Schir," but the latter, the 
reading in the 1570 edition, is evidently correct: 
Bot maister Blayr spak nothing off himsell. 
In deid off armes quhat awentur he fell. 
Schir Thomas Gray, than preyst to Wallace, 
Put in the buk how than hapnyt this cace 
At Blayr was in, [and] moiny worthi deid. 
Off quhilk him selff had no plesance to reid. 



NOTES 339 

Page 172. *See the summary of opinion by Brown, pp. 47 ff. 
Cf. David Laing {Poems of William Dunbar, Edinburgh, 
1834, I, 44) : " It is somewhat singular that his own work 
should have usually been regarded in the light of an original 
composition, when it is evident from the concluding address, 
that it was in a great measure a translation from the Latin." 
Sir Walter Scott seems to have been an exception. " It is 
a great pity," he says (in the Tales of a Grandfather) , " we 
do not know exactly the history of this brave man [Wal- 
lace]; for at the time when he lived, every one was so busy 
fighting, that there was no person to write down the history 
of what took place; and afterwards, when there was more 
leisure for composition, the truths that were collected were 
greatly mingled with falsehood." Sir Walter knew too much 
of ancient ballad worthies and heroic champions to swallow 
Blind Harry whole. 

Page 172. fSee Veitch, Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry, 
I, 173 ff.: " John Blair, the chaplain of Wallace, was little 
likely in the midst of the hurry of incidents, to pause on the 
aspects of outward nature. He would be suflBciently oc- 
cupied in noting events as they occurred. In all probability 
the descriptions of nature are the wandering minstrel's 
own " (p. 176). 

Page 172. JDr. Craigie writes of the Latin book (p. 182): 
" That this work did exist we do not doubt for a moment, 
and if it could possibly be recovered, the manifold confu- 
sions in the poem might be explained more simply than 
they can with our present imperfect knowledge of the 
period. A man who could say ' I haiff had blayme to say the 
suthfastness ' (7, 917) was not likely to be utterly reckless 
in his use of his authority." Scottish Review, XXII. 

Irving (Lives, I, 340 ff.) discusses the possibility of his 
being an ecclesiastic at considerable length, showing that 
" the canon law did not exclude a blind man from holy 
orders," but he does not reach any definite conclusion. 

The devout editor of the Wallace surmises that Blair had 
still another function. Apropos of the hero's amour with 



340 NOTES 

the maid of Lanark, and the question in the author's mind 
as to whether she was Wallace's wife or not, Dr. Moir notes 
(p. 406) : " Blair, as the bosom friend of Wallace, may have 
married them privately," adding: " One would like to con- 
sider her his wife; and the whole passage is so elevated and 
touching, that it could hardly be inspired by an illicit 
amour." Dr. Moir might well read the scenes between 
Troilus and Cressida, to get light on this episode. Blind 
Harry says that Marian Bradfute was married to Wallace: 
" Myn auctor sais, scho was his rychtwys wyff " (VI, 48). 
His author was really here Wyntoun, who says just the op- 
posite, that she was Wallace's " lemman." 

Page 17P. ^Scottish History and Literature, Glasgow, 1884, p. 

60. 
Page 172. \\ Scottish Vernacular Literature, pp. 66-67. 
Page 173. *Introduction, pp. XI-XH; cf. Garnett, I, 292. 

Page 173. fAndrew Lang {History of Scotland, 1900, I, 180) 
takes Blair's Latin book seriously. 

Page 173. JSee Neilson, Essays and Studies, I, p. 101. Mr 
Neilson, however, thinks that further search may yet show 
that Master Blair " had some kind of basis for his alleged 
existence." 

Page 173. §See Brown, pp. 48 S. 

Page 17Jf. *" Chaucer's Lollius " in Harvard Studies in 
Classical Philology, XXVIII (1917), 49 f., 55. 

Page 175. *Blind Harry asserts the same of himself; see 
above, p. 127. 

Page 177. *Bk. I, ch. XVII (Sommer's edition, p. 62). Blaise 
appears in the Suite de Merlin (ed. Gaston Paris and Jacob 
Ulrich, S.A.T.F., 1886, I, 30 ff., 44 ff., 47 f., 61, 85, 90, 
115, 133, 232). In II, 139 we read of his being at Camelot: 
" Blaises demouroit encore a Camalaoth, et si tost que 
Merlins estoit avoec lui, il li disoit les aventures qui ave- 
• noient ou roiaume de Logres [et] grant partie des choses qui 
sont a avenir, si que cil ot son livre bien ordene et auques 



NOTES 341 

mene a fin anchois que Merlins se partesist de la grant 
Bretaigne." It is here explained (I, 48) that " Merlins le 
clama maistre pour chou que il avoit este maistres sa mere." 

Page 178. *Roman de Merlin, ed. Sommer, pp. 17 f., 26 f.; 
of. also pp. 35, 41, 48, 52, 58, 73, 78, 128, 190, 191, 220 f., 
273, 312 f., 322, 337, 401, 452, 435, 452, 483, etc. Master 
Blair is represented as a boon companion of Wallace. 

To se his heyle his comfort was the mor 

As thai full oft togyddyr war before (V, 547-548). 

And Maister Blair to Wallace cam hot baid. 

With that gud lord that nobill cher thaim maid, 

Wallace send Blayr, in [to] his preistis weid. 

To warn the west quhar freyndys had gret dreid 

Master Jhon Blair was blith off that semble (IX, 1235 ff.). 

For other references to Blair, see VIII, 1197-1198, IX, 
1539, 1943, X, 793 ff. 

Page 178. ^Roman, p. 128, Compare: " Si sen ala Merlins a 
Blaise son maistre en Norhomberlande qui moult grant ioie 
li fist quant il le uit car moult lama de grant amor, & il 11 
enquist & demanda comment il auoit puis fait & il li conte 
toutes les choses en si comme vous aues oi el conte puis quil se 
parti de lui & il le mist tut en escrit & par ce le sauons nous 
encore. Et quant Merlins vint a conter de la damoisele 
quil ama par amor si en pesa moult a Blaise car paor ot 
quele ne le decheust & quil nen perdist son grant sauoir si 
len commencha a castoier, & cil li dist les prophesies teles 
comme eles estoient auenues & des autres qui puis auindrent 
en la terre ensi comme li contes vous deuisera cha en auant 
& Blayse mist tout en escrit ensi comme Merlins li conta " 
(p. 273). Master Blaise was the last person Merlin talked 
with before he finally repaired to Viviane and was im- 
prisoned by her (p. 483). 

Page 178. JCf. " Merlins sen ala en Norhomberlande a Blaise 
por atorner & metre a point toute ceste estoire " {Roman, 
p. 52). 



342 NOTES 

Page 179. *Roman, pp. 17, 35, 312, 401, notes. " Ensi com 
Merlins est deuant Maister Blaise & li fait mettre lez auen- 
tures en escrit " — is the title of the miniature at the end 
of the description of Merlin as an " homs sauvage " (p. 312) . 

Page 179. fEd. F. J. Furnivall, Rolls Series, I, 288. Mer- 
lin's other associates, Tolomer and sire Amytayn (Aun- 
tayn ?), are more obscure even than Blair's Thomas Gray. 

Page 180. *" Ce scribe imaginaire," says Gaston Paris, " se 
retrouve naturellement dans le Perceval de Robert [de 
Boron]," and he goes on to show that the Helye to whom 
the author of the Suite du Merlin appeals to translate the 
Conte del Brait (the tale of the last cry of Merlin) from the 
Latin Book of the Holy Grail, was similarly a fictitious 
parsonage, though to him was also attributed the romance 
of Tristan. " Je prie," says the false Robert, " a mon 
signeiu" Helye, qui a este mes compains a armes et en jo- 
veneche et en viellece," etc. These words cannot but remind 
us of the Wallace-poet's statement that his hero and 
Master Blair had been companions at school. See Introduc- 
tion to the Huth Merlin, S.A.T.F., pp. XIV, XXV S. 

Page 180. fThe one name is variously spelt: Blaise, Blayse, 
Bleise, Bleyse, Blase; the other, Blair, Blayr, Blare. 

Page 180. |In Italy, in the fifteenth century, to judge from 
MSS. of Merlin's prophecies written in 1442, his name was 
transformed into Basil; see Rupert Taylor, Political Proph- 
ecy, pp. 144, 152. 

Page 180. §Pp. 56 ff. Mr. Brown writes: "The chaplain 
Master John Blair, who received reward from James III 
for the transcript of Mandeville, was Vicar of Maybole 
and in all likehhood related to the Blairs of Adamtoim or 
Ardblare, near neighbours and kinsmen of Wallace of 
Craigie, chief of the Scottish Wallaces. He witnessed chart- 
ers granted by Adam Blair, at Adamtoun and Inchinnan, 
between 1467 and 1490." Cf. Sir Bryss the Blayr in the 
Wallace, VII, 209, note p. 417. — Mandevile's Travels was 
put into Irish by Fingin O'Mahony in 1475 (Stokes, Zt. /. 
celt. Phil., n, 1). 



NOTES 343 

Page 181. *" To Mandeville's burlesque account of the ob- 
taining of the Papal imprimatur, it will be difficult to find 
an analogue in English literature other than the lines of the 
Wallace just quoted " (Brown, p. 57). Mr. G. C. Coulton 
has pointed out that at the time Mandeville wrote, the 
Pope lived, not at Rome, but at Avignon. 

Page 182. *The name occurs in many forms; for this one, see 
Jessie L. Weston, Romania, XXXIII, 333, 340. 

Page 183. *Silva Gadelica, II, 127; cf. pp. 115, 122, 132, 190. 
Compare: " ' Success and benediction, Caeilte! ' said Der- 
mot, grandson of CerbhaU; * and where are Ireland's sages 
and her antiquaries ? In oUave's diction be these matters 
written down upon the tabular staves of poets and in records 
of the learned ; to the end that of all the knowledge, the en- 
lightenment, the hill-lore, and of all the doughty deeds of 
arms which Caeilte and Ossian have communicated to us, 
each and all may to their own country and to their land take 
back their share.' Even so it was done " (p. 167). 

Page 183. \Ihid., p. 112. 

Page 185. *Itin. Kambriae, I, 5. 



CHAPTER X 

Page 187. *Bannatyne Miscellany, Edinburgh, 1855, III, 
169 f. See above, p. 168, note. 

Page 188. *Bk. IV, ch. 13, 15, trans. Constable, pp. 195, 
204 f. 

Page 189. *Lives of Scottish Worthies, London, 1831, 1, 132- 
133. 

Page 190. *Tytler certainly knew, for example,|that from Blind 
Harry alone could have been derived most of the following 
information about Blair, yet at this point he carefully re- 
frains from naming his " authority " : " Blair was of like 
age with Wallace, and the two youths formed a lasting at- 
tachment to each other. When he became celebrated, Wal- 



344 NOTES 

lace chose his early friend for his chaplain; and it is a sub- 
ject of deep regret that a Latin life of his master and patron, 
which was written by Blair, has, with the exception of a 
few fragments, been lost or destroyed." Tytler uses con- 
stantly " the Minstrel biographer," even when he must 
have known no probability could attend his story. What 
elaborate pains he takes, thereby showing his hero's " re- 
morse " on doing a mean thing, to explain Fawdoun's ghost 
as due to " natural causes " ! 

Page 191. *Sir David Dalrymple, Annals of Scotland, Edin- 
burgh, 1776, I, 245-252. Compare lais comment on " Blind 
Harry, whom every historian copies, yet whom no historian 
but Sir Robert Sibbald, will venture to quote " (p. 281, 
note). 

Page 191. fPp. xiii, xvii, note. 

Page 192. *This view is echoed by Dr. yEneas Mackay in the 
Dictionary of National Biography, who, writing of Major's 
rejection of Wallace's visit to France, speaks of that as con- 
firmed by subsequent research, and also, writing of ' Henry 
the Minstrel,' mentions that narrative among certain 
others, as " corroborated by records or histories discovered 
or published since it was written." Likewise Andrew Lang 
(History of Scotland, 1900, I, 180) remarks: "Later dis- 
coveries have corroborated by documents some of Harry's 
assertions"; but he remains vague. Further (p. 189): 
" This confirms, so far. Blind Harry's tale of Wallace's 
journey to France, which has other confirmation in papers 
found upon the hero when finally taken." How far ? 

Page 193. *History, I, 358 fiF. 

Page 193. "tCyclopedia of Eng. Lit., Boston, 1860, I, 29, 
Chambers remarked naively: " That the author meant only 
to state real facts must be concluded alike from the simple 
unaffectedness of the narration and from the rarity of de- 
liberate imposture, in comparison with credulity, as a fault 
of literary men of the period." 

Page 193. |See J. H. Burton, Hist, of Scotland, 1873, H, 183. 



NOTES 345 

Page 19 Jf. * Essays and Studies, I, 112. 

Page 195. *The words of a poem by Glareanus written in 1515. 

Page 195. fW. A. B. Coolidge in the Encyclopcedia Britannica, 
where suflScient bibUography is given. 

Page 196. * Journey to the Western Islands, 1775, Works, 1787, 
X, 462-464. 

Page 196. ^Scotish Songs, 1794, 1, Ixi-lxvi. Pinkerton recanted 
in his Ancient Scotish Poems, 1786. See S. B. Hustvedt, Bal- 
lad Criticism in Scandinavia and Gt. Britain. Monograph of 
the American Scandinavian Foundation, New York, 1916, 
p. 257. It may be noted that Burns was influenced by 
Hardyknute, even as by the Wallace. See his Works, ed. 
Currie, London, 1903, I, 278 ff. 

Page 196. JSir David Wemyss was one of the Scottish am- 
bassadors sent to Norway to conduct the youthful queen 
to her new dominion. It was at Sir John Wemyss' request 
that Wyntoun wrote his Oryginale Cronykil, before 1424. 

Page 197. *The Legendary and Myth-making Process in His- 
tories of the American Revolution (Proceedings of the Amer. 
Philosopliical Soc, Vol. 51, 1912, pp. 65 f.) Dr. Fisher quotes 
among other passages the following description of Morgan 
at the battle of Saratoga : " The face of Morgan was like the 
full moon in a stormy night when she looks down red and 
fiery on the raging deep, amidst foundering wrecks and 
cries of drowning seamen; wliile his voice like thunder on 
the hills was heard loud shouting his cavalry to the charge." 

Page 199. *Knickerbocker was " particularly anxious that his 
work should be noted for its authenticity; which, indeed, 
is the very life and soul of history." " Like Xenophon," he 
says, " I have maintained the utmost impartiality, and the 
strictest adherence to truth throughout my history." 
" The chief merit on which I value myself, and foimd my 
hopes for future regard, is that faithful veracity with which 
I have compiled this invaluable little work; carefully win- 
nowing away the chaflf of hypothesis and discarding the 



346 NOTES 

tares of fable, which are too apt to spring up and choke the 
seeds of truth or wholesome knowledge." 

We are reminded of Master John Blair when we read 
what he says of Master Robert Juet of Limehouse, in Eng- 
land, " chief mate and favorite companion " of Commodore 
Henrik Hudson. " To this universal genius," wrote Knick- 
erbocker, " are we indebted for many particulars concern- 
ing this voyage; of which he wrote a history, at the request 
of the commodore, who had an imconquerable aversion to 
writing himself, from having received so many floggings 
about it when at school. To supply the deficiencies of Master 
Juet's journal, which is written with true log-book brevity, 
I have availed myself of divers family traditions, handed 
down from my great-great-grandfather, who accompanied 
the expedition in the capacity of cabin-boy." 
Page 201. *R. Morison, Junior, Perth, 1790, I, 19-20. 



CHAPTER XI 

Page 203. *Camden even called Chaucer " our English 
Homer " (Remaines, ed. 1657, p. 313). 

Page 204. *Geofifrey of Monmouth (trans. Giles, p. 104) makes 
Homer testify that Tours was built by Brutus. In another 
place he says: " At this time Samuel the prophet governed 
in Judaea, Sylvius Aeneas was yet living, and Homer was 
esteemed a famous orator and poet " (p. Ill; cf. pp. 112, 
113). 

Page 205. *Historia Ecclesiastica, No. 662, ed. Bannatyne 
Club, 1829, II, 349: "Henricus quidam, a nativitate caecus, 
rara tamen ingenii felicitate, Homerus alter, patriam lin- 
guam supra aetatem suam ditavit. Scripsit operosum et 
grande opus versu vernaculo." 

Page 205. ]A Collection of Old Ballads, London, 1723-25, I, 
p. iii; cf. S. B. Hustvedt, Ballad Criticism, pp. 98, 100, 

Page 205. JPp. 116, 103. 



NOTES 347 

Page 206. *I, 352. 

Page 206. ^Specimens of the Early English Poets, 5th edition, 
London, 1845, I, 284. 

Page 207. * English Writers, VI, 244. The indebtedness of the 
Wallace to oral tradition has been much emphasized. — 
Robert Wood {Essay on Homer, London, 1824, p. 57) re- 
marks: "As to the diflBculty of conceiving how Homer 
could acquire, retain, and communicate, all he knew, with- 
out the aid of letters, it is, I own, very striking. And yet, I 
think, it will not appear insurmountable, if, upon compar- 
ing the fidelity of oral tradition, and the powers of memory, 
with the poet's knowledge, we find the two first much 
greater, and the latter much less, than we are apt to im- 
agine." 

Page 207. f^Eneas Mackay, Dictionary of National Biography. 

Page 207. JThe words of Eyre-Todd, Early Scottish Litera- 
ture, p. 187. 
Page 207. §11, 109-110. 

Page 208. *Keble in his Praelectiones (Lectures on Poetry, 
1832-18U, trans. E. K. Francis, Oxford, 1912, I, 279 ff.) 
argued for the traditional belief that Homer was blind 
" before the last years of his old age, while he was still 
strong enough to travel through cities and isles, singing 
his wonted lays." He admitted that on first impression it 
seems impossible that " Homer was already stricken in 
sight when he wrote the two great poems we possess and 
enjoy today." — " For how can we associate with a blind 
poet those many word-pictures, so varied in kind, form, 
colour, movement, and gesture — all so richly and truth- 
fully painted ? " These, however, he maintained, were 
fruits of the memory, and held that there was a diflference 
on this point between the Iliad and the Odyssey. " I de- 
cidedly think the whole position is best explained by sup- 
posing that the Iliad was written while Homer's sight re- 
mained to him, and the Odyssey, or most of it at least, when 
he had lost it." 



348 NOTES 

Page 208. \English Literature, an Illustrated Record, London, 
1903, 1, 292. It is not strange that all blind minstrels should 
suggest Homer. An example from Ireland in recent times 
attests the irresistible reaction. Mr. Yeats, in his account 
of " The Last Gleeman," Michael Moran (tl846), who is 
said to have gone blind a fortnight after his birth, relates 
{Celtic Twilight, p. 74) : " Once an officious peeler arrested 
him as a vagabond, but was triumphantly routed amid the 
laughter of the court, when Moran reminded his worship of 
the precedent set by Homer, who was also, he declared, a 
poet, and a blind man, and a beggarman." The transition 
is easy from " like Homer " in some respects to like Homer 
in others, or all. 

Page 208. fPlato {Republic, X, 600) attests the tradition 
that Homer was greatly neglected when he was alive. He 
was evidently allowed, the pliilosopher thought, to go about 
as a rhapsode because men in his day did not esteem Mm 
as a teacher. Learned critics, from Major down, have per- 
sistently treated the Wallace-poet patronizingly. Until 
recently no one divined the real purpose of liis poem. 

Page 209. *See Pauly-Wissowa, XVI, 2199. 

Page 209. fEphorus thought the name "O/zijpos simply meant 
" the blind one "; the lonians called the blind o/xrjpoi, be- 
cause they needed people to lead them about. The poet 
was first called Melesigenes, and later Homer after he 
became blind. See Pseudo-Plutarch, I, 2. 

Page 209. JWood {op. cit., pp. 168-169) compares Homer's 
case in tliis respect with that of Ossian: "If then, with 
Josephus, we suppose that Homer left no written copy of 
his works, the account we find of them in ancient writers 
becomes more probable. It is generally supposed that Ly- 
curgus brought them from Ionia into Greece, where they 
were known before only by scraps and detached pieces. 
Diogenes Laertius attributed the merit of this perform- 
ance to Solon; Cicero gives it to Pisistratus; and Plato to 
Hipparchus; and they may possibly have been all concerned 



NOTES 349 

in it. But there would have been no occasion for each of 
these persons to have sought so diligently for the parts of 
these poems, and to have arranged them so carefully, if 
there had been a complete copy. If, therefore, the Spartan 
Lawgiver, and the other personages committed to writing, 
and introduced into Greece, what had been before only sung 
by the rhapsodists of Ionia, just as some curious fragments 
of ancient poetry have been lately collected in the northern 
parts of this island, their reduction to order in Greece was 
a work of taste and judgment; and those great names 
which we have mentioned might claim the same merit in 
regard to Homer, that the ingenious editor of Fingal is 
entitled to from Ossian." 

Page 209. §Bk. I, 11. 355 ff.; cf. Moir's edition, p. 388. 

Page 211. *For these and other details see Pauly-Wissowa; 
Vni (16), 2190 f., 2198 ff. 

Page 21 S. *See Nutt, Voyage, II, 200; Magnus Maclean, Lit. 
of the Celts, p. 175. Shades of O'Curry rest in peace! 

Page 213. fTylor, Primitive Culture, I, 276. 

Page 214-. *According to Snorri, Thrudheim was Thrace, 
Baldr (Beldeg) ruled over Westphalia; Sif was the Sibyl; 
etc. 

Page 214- fOdin engaged in various contests of the same sort. 

Page 2U. tCorpus Poeticum Boreale, I, 260 f., 262; Grim- 
nismdl, 44; Lokasenna, 11-18; Sigrdrifumdl, 16. 

Page 215. *Cf. the Skaldskaparmdl, § 10; see below, pp. 247 ff. 

Page 215. fSee Bugge, Bidrag til den oeldste Skaldedigtnings 
Historic, Christiania, 1894; F. Jonsson, Den, Oldnorske og 
Oldislandske Literaturs Historie, I, 417 ff. Once admit the 
conception of a minstrel, and of course he has to be imag- 
ined going about from place to place. There was such a 
tradition of Celtic mythological poets. See Rhys, Hibbert 
Lectures, pp. 324 ff., following O'Curry, MS. Materials, 
p. 265. 



350 NOTES 

Page 216. *Snorri's words remind us strikingly of those of 
Plutarch at the beginning of his Life of Theseus: " I desire 
that the fabulous material I deal in may be subservient to 
my endeavours, and, being moulded by reason, may accept 
the form of history, and, when it obstinately declines prob- 
ability and will not blend appropriately with what is credi- 
ble I shall pray my readers may be indulgent and receive 
with kindness the fables of antiquity." 

Snorri emphasizes the great age of his men of lore. It has 
always been an easy step from old to blind. See the account 
of the blind old prophet of Moster in the large Saga of Olaf 
Tryggvason (trans. Sephton, pp. 399 f.). 

Page 216. ^Primitive Culture, I, 400 f. See his remarks on 
eponymous ancestors in Greece and elsewhere. 

Page 217. * Republic, II, 382, trans. Jowett. 

Page 218. *The Rigspula, a poem showing marked Celtic in- 
fluence, even in the title. Cf . the Mothers in Fau^t. 

Page 219. *It should be noted that Woden was also placed at 
the head of race-genealogies. In one manuscript of Nen- 
nius (trans. Giles, pp. 412 ff.) he begins the lists of the kings 
of Bernicia, East Anglia, the Mercians, the Deiri — 
" Woden begat," etc. 

Page 219. fScholars have reluctantly given up belief in the 
sixth-century fabulist of this name, now recognizing that 
*' some of the fables attributed to him are drawn from 
Egyptian sources older by 800 years than the famous 
dwarf who is supposed to have invented them." But why 
repeat that he was represented as deformed " perhaps to 
indicate his nearer approach to the animals and his peculiar 
sympathy with their habits " ? 

Page 222. *" An examination of both the Gaelic and British 
legendary romances shows," a recent writer has said, 
imder embellishing details added by later hands, an inner 
core of primeval thought which brings them into line with 
the similar ideas of other races in the earliest stage of cul- 
ture. Their * local colour ' may be that of their last ' editor,' 



NOTES 351 

but their * plots ' are pre-mediaeval, pre-Christian, pre- 
historic. The characters of early Gaelic legend belong to the 
same stamp of imagination that created Olympian and 
Titan, ^Esir and Jotun." 

" " Roughly speaking, one may compare [the civilization 
of the Celts] with the civilization of the Greeks, as de- 
scribed by Homer. Both peoples were in the tribal and 
pastoral stage of culture, in which the chiefs are the great 
cattle-owners round whom their less wealthy fellows gather. 
Both wear much the same attire, use the same kind of 
weapons, and fight in the same manner — from the war- 
chariot, a vehicle already obsolete even in Ireland by the 
first century of the Christian era. Battles are fought single- 
handed between chiefs, the ill-armed common people con- 
tributing little to their result, and less to their history. Such 
chiefs are said to be divinely descended — sons, even, of the 
immortal gods. Their tremendous feats are sung by the 
bards, who, like the Homeric poets, were privileged persons, 
inferior only to the war-lord. Ancient Greek and ancient 
Celt had very much the same conceptions of life, both as 
regards this world and the next." See Squire, Mythology of 
the British Islands, pp. 15, 25-26; cf. D'Arbois, La Civilisa- 
tion des Celtes et celle de VEpopee Hom^riqiie {Cours de la 
Litt. Celt., Vol. VI). 

For analogies between the Northern heroic literature and 
the Homeric, see W. P. Ker, Epic and Romance, 1897, 
pp. 9 fl'. 

Page 223. *Homer sometimes refers to the Muse, sometimes 
to the Muses. 

Page 225. *Compare Prometheus, the omniscient seer who 
taught the art of prophecy to men, and was chained by 
Zeus for acting contrary to his will. 

Page 226. *2 Kings VI, 18; Genesis XIX, 11; Acts IX, 8, 
XIII, 11. 

Page 226. fMatthew XII, 22; Mark VIII, 23; John IX, 6-7; 
Matthew XX, 30-34; Mark, X, 46-52. 



352 NOTES 

Page m. *John IX, 2-5. 

Page 227. fExodus IV, 10 fiF. 

Page 227. XPhaedrus, 243; trans. Jowett, I (1871), 57. " Die 
Dublette zu Stesichoros ist vervoUstandigt in vit. 6 Sittl. 
6: Helena lasst H. erblinden, weil er die Epen nieht ver- 
brennen will (umgekehrt Isocr. Helena, 64-65; Hel. er- 
scheint H. und tragt ihm auf zu dicliten) " (Pauly- 
Wissowa, 2201). 

Page 228. *VII, 647 fiF. 

Page 228. tPauly-Wissowa, 2201. 

Page 228. JSee Ed. Young, Conjectures on Original Composi- 
tion, 2d ed. London, 1759, p. 40. 

Page 228. §See Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, p. 211. 

Page 229. *See Nutt, Voyage, I, 213 S.; Rev. Celt., XV, 315; 
Bodley Dinnsenchas, No. 36. 

Page 229. \The Prose Edda, trans. Brodem-, xv, p. 27. This 
story was probably only attached to Odin to explain why 
he was one-eyed, the real reason for that situation being 
more primitive than that. " Odin's single eye," says Tylor 
(Primitive Culture, I, 351) " seems certainly to be the sun 
in heaven." Whether or no this be the case, it should be 
observed that there are many one-eyed folk in primitive 
myth, from Polyphemus down. The Cyclopes, with whom 
he was connected, were reputed to be of the sons of Uranus 
and Ge, and belonged to the Titans. At first the Cyclopes 
were regarded as giant herdsmen (cf . the one-eyed being of 
that sort in Yvain). But in later Greek tradition they were 
represented as the assistants of Hephaestus, who make 
arms and ornaments for gods and heroes, like the Northern 
dwarfs. The architects so-called were supposed to be a 
race of men who derived their name from a king Cyclops 
and lived in Thrace. (It may be noted that Snorri identified 
Thrudheim with Thrace and represents Thor as fostered 
there.) We are reminded of the race of demons at the com- 
mand of Merlin, who were set to build a brazen wall round 
Caermarthen, as told by Spenser in the Faery Queen (III, 



NOTES 353 

3, 10). In Celtic story, the one-eyed Gow MacMorn is said 
to have partially lost his sight in combat with Luichet (see 
prologue to the Boyish Exploits of Finn). King Echaid mac 
Luchtai is said to have been one-eyed because he gave the 
other to the poet Aidherne (see Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 
326-327). 

Page 229. JCf. Hdvamdl (st. 110): 

M41s at t>ylja jjular stokki a: 

Url>ar brunni at 
sak ok l>agj)ak, sak ok hugj^ak, 
hlyddak a Hgva hiqI. 

Page 231. *Mr. H. Munro Chad wick says, apropos of the 
story of Wayland (Volundarkvi&a) : "There can be no 
doubt that in the Heroic Age — and indeed in much earlier 
times — princes were especially anxious to obtain slaves, 
whether foreigners or not, who were skilled in metallurgy. 
And it is by no means incredible that such slaves were 
sometimes lamed in order to prevent any attempt at 
escape — although, quite apart from tliis explanation, 
smith's work may be regarded as a vocation natural to the 
lame man, just as minstrelsy to the blind " {The Heroic 
Age, Cambridge, 1912, p. 134). 

Page 232. *In the Life of St. Liudger we have a story of a 
blind Frisian minstrel, named Bernlef, who is said to have 
been " greatly loved by his neighbors because of his genial- 
ity and his skill in reciting to the accompaniment of the 
harp stories of the deeds of the ancients and the wars of 
kings." Vita S. Livdgeri, II, 1 {Mon. Germ. Scriptores, II, 
p. 412). See Chadwick, p. 80. It is well to recall that, ac- 
cording to convention, ancient bards almost invariably sing 
of the ancients, though in the light of contemporary events, 
and to instruct or inspire their descendants. 

Page 232. fObviously, I do not agree with the attitude of Mr. 
Walter Leaf, in his recent book Homer and History, London, 
1915, pp. 25 ff. " The fact is," he says, " that the human 
race does not make men out of gods; but it is always very 



354 NOTES 

busy making gods out of men. . . . Until the contrary is 
proved, then, or at least made probable, we are bound, 
when we find a character at one time human, at another 
time divine, to assume that the human element is the 
original, the divine superadded to it later." Snorri human- 
ized Odin after the author of the Chanson de Roland hero- 
icized Charlemagne. Gawain and Perceval were humanized 
at the same time that Godefroy de Bouillon and Richard 
Coeur de Lion were heroicized. Were Robin Hood and 
Hereward the same sort of outlaws ? Were Nectanebus and 
Virgil the same sort of magicians ? Arthur and Napoleon 
are surely not in the same class, any more than William Tell 
and William Wallace. 

Page 233. *Paradise Lost, Bk. Ill, 11. 35 ff. Milton is the only 
great poet who can be proved to have been actually blind, 
and he did not become so until he was about fifty years of 
age and had by then become a perfect master of style. 
Marston and his like are in a different class. 

Page 23J^. *See John Walter Good, Studies in the Milton 
Tradition, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, 1915, pp. 51 ff.; also 
App. B., pp. 252 ff. 

Page 235. * Poems, 1900. The volume contains Christ in Hades, 
beginning " Keen as a blinded man." 

Page 236. *Faust, 2d Part, V, v., trans. Bayard Taylor. 

Page 236. t"Aus pergamenischer Quelle vielleicht " — Pauly- 
Wissowa. The allegorical explanation of myths was com- 
bated by Socrates, Plato and Aristarchus, but still survives. 

Page 236. JCf. Walter Pater, Renaissance, Studies in Art and 
Poetry, 1900, p. 37. 

Page 236. ^Vindication of Mr. Milton's Paradise Lost, quoted 
Good, pp. 253-254; " The bountiful powers above did more 
than make him amends for their taking away his sight, by 
so illumining his mind as to enable him most completely 
to sing of matchless beings, matchless things, before un- 
known to, and even unthought of by the whole race of men." 

Page 237. *Multitude and Solitude, New York, 1911, p. 170. 



NOTES 355 



CHAPTER Xn 

Page 239. *Primitive Culture, I, 273. 

Page 2^2. *M.N.D., V, i, 12 fiF. I can find no illuminating com- 
mentary on this passage, and some discussions of it are 
truly sad. 

In a summary of a paper by A. W. Pollard and J. Dover 
Wilson, read before The Bibliograpliical Society on Decem- 
ber 16, 1918 (published in the News-Sheet, January, 1919), 
it is most interestingly suggested that the first six lines of 
the above quotation, together with the four beginning 
*' Such shaping phantasies," quoted on page 270, that is, 
those specially dealing with the " poet," were an after- 
thought on Shakespeare's part, " written as a cramped 
marginal addition for a revival not very long before the 
play was printed in 1600." " Read the rest by itself and we 
find the theme of ' lovers and mad men ' developed in 
Shakespeare's early style." 

Page 2H- *" Amergin," wrote Alfred Nutt, " chief poet of 
the race which is to conquer the Tuatha de Danann, the 
lords of Faery, and Taliessin, chief of the Welsh poets, 
son of the enemy of the goddess of the cauldron, the Welsh 
counterpart of the Irish Tuatha De, may be regarded as 
varying forms of one mythic original. Their pretensions 
are the same, and have the same basis. Foes of the wizard 
gods who shift their shape, who are invisible at will, who 
manifest themselves under different forms, they, too, by 
might of the magic all-compelling chanted spell, have 
acquired like powers {Voyage of Bran, II, 92). 

Page 21^6. *Nutt, Mabinogion, pp. 295 ff. See p. 34, above, 
and note *. 

Page 246. \Hihhert Lectures, pp. 549-550; cf. Book of Talies- 
sin, Poem xiv, trans. Rhys, Arthurian Legend, p. 301; see 
below, pp. 279-281. 

Page 2Ji.7. *Squire's translation, on the basis of previous ones 
by Stephens, Skene, Nash and Rhys {Mythology, p. 319). 



356 NOTES 

Page 2^7. \Hihhert Lectures, pp. 282 flF. 

Page SJi-?. JCf. Corpus Poeticum Boreale, I, 70. In the Loka- 
senna, Loki reminds Odin that the latter dealt in magic 
in his old doings. Odin's shape-shifting and adventurous 
amours (of. the Hdvamdl) we ignore when we write of old 
Norse mythology. In Homer, though Athene is the goddess 
of wisdom, she can change her shape. Homer too, ignored 
the baser myths. 
Page 2^8. *Snorri's Edda, trans. Brodeur, pp. 82 fif. Bragi 

is the son of Odin as Gwydion is the son of Don. 
Page 249. *Cf. the numerous forms Taliessin took in flight 
from the court of Ceridwen: 
I have fled with vigour, I have fled as a frog, 
I have fled in the semblance of a crow, scarcely finding rest; 
I have fled vehemently, I have fled as a chain, etc. 

(Nutt, Mabinogion, p. 299.) 
Page 2ji-9. fSee Burns, The Kirk's Alarm, stanza 11, for a 

similar idea (Brodeur). 
Page 250. *Revue Celtique, XV, 315 ; Bodley Dinnsenchas, 

No, 36; above, p. 229. 
Page 250. jSee Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 270 ff. Rhys points 
to an identification of Seon with Hercules. Ogmios also was 
it seems, equated with Hercules, " and according to Lu- 
cian's account of him [Ogmios], he was the personification 
of speech, and all that conduced to make speech a powerful 
agency." 
Page 250. XRevue Celtique, XV, 457 ; Bodley Dinnsenchas, 

No. 30. 
Page 251. *Cf. Nutt, Voyage, I, 213 ff. 

Page 251. jAs told in the Book of the Dun Cow, trans. Crowe, 
Journal Kilkenny Arch. Soc, 1870-71, 371 ff.; cf. Rhys, 
Hibbert Lectures, pp. 259 ff. In the prologue to Chretien de 
Troyes's Conte del Graal, we learn how King Amangons and 
his men carried off the golden cups of faery damsels, and 
as a result the land of Logres became waste; cf. Rhys, 
Arthurian Legend, p. 247. 



NOTES 357 

Page 251. JWith these Celtic cauldrons Rhys compares the 
holy tripods of the Greek oracles. " All these cases," he 
remarks, " connecting the sacred vessel or its contents with 
poetry and inspiration, point possibly back to some primitive 
drink brewed by the early Aryan, and taken by the medi- 
cine-man to produce a state of ecstasy or intoxication " 
{Arthurian Legend, pp. 326-327). 

Page 252. *Hibbert Lectures, pp. 292-298, where references 
are given. " In Norse poetry the stealing of the precious 
mead is spiritualized into a story of the origin of poetry and 
wisdom, and the Welsh tradition makes the cauldron of 
the Head of Hades a vessel whence the muses and their 
inspiration ascend; while Vedic literature clings rather to 
the more original idea of an intoxicating drink, in that it 
loves to dwell on Indra's excessive fondness of soma, 
and on its power to stimulate and strengthen him to fight 
the powers of darkness." 

Page 252. fR.V. IV, 26, 4; see Andrew Lang, Encyc. Brit., 
under Mythology: " Yehl, the Tlingit god-hero, was a 
raven or crane when he stole the water (Bancroft, III, 100- 
102). The prevalence of animals, or of god-animals, in myths 
of the stealing of water, soma, and fire, is very remarkable." 
Compare the way 0dm turned himself into a serpent and 
an eagle when stealing Suttungr's mead. Also the case of 
Tahessin above, pp. 33-34. 

Page 252. JSee Silva Gadelica, II, 385 ff. 

Page 255. *Trans. Stokes, Irische Texte, Leipzig, 1891, III, I, 
211-216; cf. Wentz, pp. 340 ff., 427 ff. In the Gilla Decair, 
Dermot is reminded (by Fergus Truelips, Finn's oUave) that 
he had studied with Manannan in the Land of Promise, 
had been accurately taught by Angus Oge, the Daghda's 
son, and was therefore fit for superhuman feats on earth. 

Page 257. *See Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 547-548. 

Page 257. fLondon, 1603, p. 57 (error for 73). 

Page 259. *0n the whole question of rebirth, see Wentz, The 
Fairy Faith, Oxford, 1911, pp. 359 ff. 



358 NOTES 

Page 260. *Meno, 81, trans. Jowett. I have used Wentz's 
translation (p. 382) " surpassing in poetical skill " for 
Jowett's " great in wisdom." 

Page 262. *Bacon, in his essay 0/ Friendship, discussing 
Aristotle's statement, " Whoever is delighted in solitude, 
is either a wild beast or a god," maintains that " it is most 
untrue that it [aversion to society] should have any char- 
acter at all of the divine nature, except it proceed, not out 
of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire 
to sequester a man's self for a higher conversalion: such as is 
found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the 
heathen; as Epimenides, the Candian; Numa, the Roman; 
Empedocles, the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana; and 
truly and really in divers of the ancient hermits and holy 
fathers of the Church." 

Page 262. jit may be noted that the philosophers whom 
Dante put in limbo, " spoke seldom and with low voices." 

Page 262. t2 Cor. 12 : 1-4. 

Page 263. *Cf. Judges, 6:12ff.; 11:29; 13:25; 14:6,19; 
15:14; 1 Kings 17:2, 24. 

Page 263. fLuke 4:33-34. Cf. Peter 1:21: "No prophecy 
ever came by the will of man; but men spake from God, 
being moved by the Holy Ghost." 

Page 26^. *Luke 4: 14; John 11: 51; 1 John 4: 1. 

Page 26^. ^Description of Wales, Bk. I, ch. XVI; cf. his tale 
of Meilerius, above, p. 57. Major as we have noted, specu- 
lated much about the British prophets (see above, pp. 151- 
153), also Wyntoun in his Chronicle and Kirk in the Secret 
Commonwealth. 

Page 265. *V, Prose III. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth 
(VIII, 10), MerUn tells Aurehus that if he (the wizard) 
should say anything out of wantonness or vanity, the spirit, 
or demon, which taught him would immediately leave him. 
(This is repeated in Robert of Gloucester.) Major says (Bk. 
II, ch. 6) : " The extravagant laudation of Arthur by the 
Britons leads to a partial doubt of the facts of his life. 



NOTES 359 

The stories told about Arthur's vows concerning the Peri- 
lous Bed, as well as many other things relative to Arthur 
and Valvanus [Gawain] and what they say happened in 
Britain at that time — all these I count as fiction, unless 
indeed they were brought about by craft of demons." 

Page 265. ^Inferno, xx. 

Page 265. JSee Keble's Lectures on Poetry, trans. E, K. Fran- 
cis, Oxford, 1912, II, 476 note. 

Page 265. ^Advancement of Learning, 11, xxii, 13; Essay I. 

Page 266. *Song of Angels, ed. E. G. Gardner, The Cell of 
Self-Knowledge, pp. xxii f,, 69. 

Page 266. ]Romeo and Juliet, I, iv, 97 f . 

Page 266. %Merry Wives of Windsor, III, iii, 230. 

Page 267. *Primitive Culture, II, 137-138, 124, 128. 

Page 268. *See Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 278-279; cf. p. 99. 

Page 269. *Joyce, Social History of Ireland, I, 224 ; see Todd, 
Book of Hymns, p. 90. " In Tahiti," remarked Tylor (II, 
134), " it was often noticed that men who in the natural 
state showed neither ability nor eloquence would in con- 
vulsive delirium burst forth into earnest lofty declamation, 
declaring the will and answers of the gods, and prophesying 
future events, in well-knit harangues full of the poetic figure 
and metaphor of the professional orator. But when the fit 
was over and sober reason returned, the prophet's gifts 
were gone." 

*' In a dialogue between Myrddin and his sister Gwend- 
dydd, contained in the Red Book of Hergest, there is a curi- 
ous reference to ghosts of the mountain who, just like 
fairies that live in the mountains, steal away men's reason 
when they strike them, — in death which may appear 
natural, in sickness, or in accident. And after his death — 
after he has been taken by these ghosts of the mountain — 
Myrddin returns as a ghost and speaks from the grave a 
prophecy which ' the ghost of the mountain in Aber Carav ' 
told him " (Wentz, p. 330). 



360 NOTES 

Page 269. tPliny remarks {Natural History, xxx, 13) : " To- 
day Britain practises the art [of magic] with religious awe 
and with so many ceremonies that it might seem to have 
made the art known to the Persians." See Mac CuUoch, 
Religion of the Ancient Celts, 1911, pp. 249-250, 293 ff., 300, 
311, 325. 

Page 269. JCicero, De Natura Deorum, II, 66; Aristotle, 
Problemata, 30, 1; Seneca, De Tranquillitate Animi, 17; 
Absalom and Achitophel, 163-164. 

Page 270. *0n " The Lover's Malady of Ereos," see J. L. 
Lowes, Modem Philology, XI, 491 ff. 

Page 271. *Cuchulinn was also afflicted by battle-frenzy 
wliich made him proceed against his enemies with a rage 
akin to that of the Old Norse berserker; cf. Rhys, Arthurian 
Legend, pp. 216-217. 

According to some traditions, Heracles, after his return 
from Hades, was seized with madness — a calamity sent to 
him by Hera for a feigned reason. 

Page 271. fSee Malory, Bk. XI, ch. 8 ff., XII, ch. 1 ff.; cf. 
Wentz, p. 316. 

Page 271. JSee Schofield, Studies on the Libeaus Desconus., 
pp. 197 ff. 

Page 272. *The Lay of Narcissus and the Lay of Aristotle, 
show the naturalness with which antique fables could be 
treated in the style of Breton lays. There were all sorts of 
lays, but " most they ben of faery." The charm of other 
world music appears in Yonec. 

Page 273. *See As You Like It, III, iii, 19. Blackwell re- 
marked {Essay on Homer, pp. 145 f .) : " Fiction and lying are 
inseparable from poetry. This was the first profession of the 
Muses, as they told Hesiod one day they appeared to limi 
while he fed his lambs in a vale of Helicon: ' Shepherd, said 
they, 

'T is ours false tales to frame, resembling true; 

And ours t' unfold the truth itself to men. 



NOTES 361 

Then they gave him a fair rod, a shoot of verdant laurel, 
breathed into him a divine song, and made him celebrate 
things past and things to come." 

Page 27^. *Plato, Ion, 533-535, trans. Jowett. Plato con- 
cludes in the Meno (p. 99) that not only diviners and 
prophets and poets, but also statesmen, " may be said to 
be divine and illumined, being inspired and possessed of 
God, in which condition they say many grand things, not 
knowing what they say." 

Page 276. *Conjectures on Original Composition, 2d ed., Lon- 
don, 1759, pp. 26 f., 36 f., 45. 

Page 276. tSee J. F. Nisbet, Insanity of Genius, 1891 ; Sir 
Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius, new ed. 1892; C. Lom- 
broso, Man of Genitis, Eng. trans., 1891. 

Page 277. *Was it only a fasliion of speech that made Byron 
say of Rousseau, whose work he counted a prelude to the 
French Revolution: 

From him came 
As from the Pythian's mystic cave of yore. 
Those oracles which set the world in flame ? 

{Childe Harold. 3, 81.) 

Page 278. *Joseph Warton (in the Enthusiast) represents 
Fair Fancy as finding Shakespeare on the banks of the 
Avon and bearing " the smiling babe " to a close cavern, 
where she soothed his wondering ears with songs. 
Still the shepherds show 
The sacred place, whence with religious awe 
They hear, returning from the field at eve. 
Strange whisperings of sweet music through the air. 

Page 278. fRichard of St. Victor, whom Dante puts among 
the glowing souls of the great doctors and theologians in 
the fourth Heaven and describes as " in contemplation more 
than man," shows in his De Gratia Contemplationis how the 
soul passes upward through various steps of contemplation 
until " it contemplates what is above reason, and seems 
to be beside reason, or even contrary to reason." He teaches 



362 NOTES 

that " there are three qualities of contemplation according 
to its intensity: mentis dilatio, an enlargement of the soul's 
vision without exceeding the bounds of human activity; 
mentis suhlevatio, elevation of mind, in which the intellect, 
divinely illumined, transcends the measure of humanity, 
and beholds the things above itself, but does not entirely 
lose self-consciousness; and mentis alienatio, or ecstasy, in 
which all memory of the present leaves the mind, and it 
passes into a state of divine transfiguration, in which the 
soul gazes upon truth without any veils of creatures, not 
in a mirror darkly, but in its pure simplicity " {The Cell of 
Self -Knowledge, ed. Edmund G. Gardner, 1910, p. xiii). 

Page 279. *Ars Poetica, 296. 

Page 279. ^Lectures on Poetry, I, 55 ff. 

Page 280. *Tale of Taliessin, in Nutt's edition of the Mabi- 
nogion, pp. 306-613; cf. Voyage, II, 84 ff. 

Page 282. *Latin Epistle to Diodati, Elegy VI. 

Page 282. f" To feel of a sudden," says Mr. Stewart, " that 
there is surely an eternal world behind, or within, the 
temporal world of particular items, is to experience the 
Kdidapais which Poetry — one among other agencies — 
effects in us." 

" The Soul of Poetry is apprehended in its Body at the 
moment when we awake from the ' Poet's Dream,' and on 
a sudden see the passing figures and events of his interest- 
ing story arrested in their temporal flight, like the ' brede of 
marble men and maidens ' on the Grecian Urn, and stand- 
ing still, sub specie aeternitatis, as emblems — of what ? — 
of Eternal Verities, the purport of which we cannot now 
recall; but we know that they are valid, and are laid up in 
that other world from which we are newly returned ' 
{Myths of Plato, pp. 388, 385). 

Page 283. * Julian and Maddalo, 11. 544-546. 

Page 28^. *Preserved in the Book of Leinster; ed. and transl. 
Whitley Stokes, Revue Celtique, XXVI, 4 ff.; Eleanor Hull, 
The Poem-Book of the Gael, 1913, pp. 53 ff, 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abhdaein, 74. 

Achaeans, the, 93. 

Achilles, 20, 228, 234. 

Achinlek, Vidas, 326. 

Adam, 82. 

Adam Bell, 112. 

Adamnan, 80. 

Adonis, 93. 

Advocates' Library, the, 142. 

Aedh, 73, 74, 97. 

Aegir, 215, 248, 249. 

Aeneas, 257. 

Aeschylus, 217. 

Aesir, 249 f . 

Aesop, 219. 

Afflek, see Auchinleck. 

Aidherne, 353. 

Aidoneus, 78. 

Ajax, 20. 

Alban Gael, the, 162. 

Albany, Duke of, 148. 

Albion, 216. 

Alcinous, 93, 223. 

Alemannus, 216. 

Alexander the Great, 34. 

Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, 1 19 f. 

Alexander, king of Scotland, 21. 

Alexander of Paphos, 212. 

Alexti, 42. 

Alfred, king of England, 80. 

Allen, Grant, 161 f. 

Allerton Moor, 121. 

Allfather, 229. 

Amangons, King, 356. 

Ambrosius, 264 f . 



Amergin, 33, 34, 51, 79, 244. 

American Revolution, the, 197. 

Amphiaraus, 93, 265. 

Amphion, 77. 

Amytayn, 179. 

Ananias, 225. 

Andrew, St., 105, 106, 110, 

Anelida and Arcite, 8. 

Aneurin, 79. 

Anglo-Saxon myth, 91 f. 

Angus, son of John, last Lord of 
the Isles, 293. 

Angus mac Oc, 271. 

Angus Oge, 357. 

Annandale, 149. 

Annwyn, 246, 247. 

Answer to a Highlandman's Invec- 
tive, 23. 

Antiope, 77. 

Antony, Mark, 272. 

Aphrodite, 94, 268. 

Apocalypse, the, 152, 277. 

Apollo, 77, 93, 209, 224, 255, 268. 

Apollonius of Tyana, 358. 

Araby the Blest, 51. 

Arawn, 256. 

Arcite, 129 f. 

Arden, forest of, 71. 

Argyle, Argyll, Argyleshire, 25, 50, 
78, 293. 

Argonauts, the, 224. 

Aridaeus-Thespesius, 261. 

Ariel, 43. 

Arion, 76. 

Aristarchus, 354, 



366 



INDEX 



Aristophanes, 209. 

Aristotle, 93, 269, 358. 

Ark, the, 34. 

Arran, 78. 

Arthur, King, 20, 28, 32, 46, 69, 
70, 71, 73, 108, 119, 159, 177, 
178, 184, 185, 186, 231, 271, 354. 

Asgard, 214, 249. 

Ash of Yggdrasill, the, 229. 

Asia, 34, 51, 214. 

Athena, 225, 356. 

Athens, 39, 243. 

Auchinleck, James, 123. 

Augustine, St. (d. 430), 265. 

Augustine, St. (d. 604), 16, 299. 

AureHus, 358. 

Austria, 195. 

Avalon, 70, 78. 

Awdy, 142. 

Awennithion (Awenyddion), 264. 

Ayr, 48, 332. 

Bacchanals, 50-54. 

Bacchic maidens, 274. 

Bacchus, 36, 48, 51. 

Bacchus-Dionysus, 48. 

Bacon, Francis, 265; quoted, 

150 f., 358. 
Badammar, 99. 
Baldred, St., 17. 
Balkin, 35, 36. 
Banister, 150. 
Bannockburn, 63. 
Barbour, John, 10, 63, 144, 146, 

148, 154, 165, 206. 
Bardus, 216. 
Bar-jesus, 226. 
Bartimaeus, 226. 
Battle of the Frogs and Mice, 94. 
Bayonne, 42. 

Bede, 56, 80, 84, 150, 217. 
Bedivere, Sir, 70. 



Belelah (Behal), 35, 43, 44. 

Bellenden, John, 14, 189. 

Beltane, 49. 

Bennat, 233. 

Benoit, 174, 175. 

Beowulf, 220, 221. 

Berdok, king of Babylon, 40. 

Bernlef, 353. 

Berwick, 148. 

Bethsaida, 226. 

Bible, the, 6, 225 S., 252, 263 f. 

Biggar, 136, 137. 

Bil-eygr, 102. 

Billie Blin(d), 100-103, 108, 157 f., 
160. 

Bilwis, 158. 

Black Prince, the, 144. 

Blackwell, Thomas, 205 f., 237; 
quoted, 360 f. 

Blai, 87. 

Blair, Arnold, 208. 

Blair, Master John, 106, 117, 121, 
170-183, 208. 

Blaise, Master, 176-180, 182. 

Bledhericus, Blihis, 182 f. 

Blind, 100. 

Blind Guaire, 98, 99. 

Blind Harry, the problem of, 3-13; 
Major's evidence, 14-25; The 
Dwarfs Part cf the Play, 26-54 
Blind Harry and faery, 55-78 
the real Blind Harry, 96-115 
Blind Hari-y and Blind Homer, 
203-238. See Life of William 
Wallace. 

Blindr (the Blind One), 230. 

Blind the Bad, 158. 

Blind the Bale-wise, 100, 102, 
103. 

Blind Willie, see Wandering Willie. 

Boadach, 298. 

Boand, 229, 250. 



INDEX 



367 



Boccaccio, 131, 174, 175, 176; 

quoted, 260 f . 
Bodhb Derg, 75. 
Bodn, 248, 249, 250. 
Boece, Hector, 14, 189. 
Bol-eygr, 102. 
Bolverkr, 158, 249. 
Boethius, 176, 265. 
Bolwis, 158. 
Boneless, 36. 
Book of Conquests, 81. 
Book of Leinster, 83, 99, 213. 
Book of Taliessin, 244 f., 257. 
Book of the Chronicles of Scotland, 

14. 
Book of the Dean of Lismore, 64, 

97, 155 f. 
Book of the Dun Cow, 84, 88; 

quoted, 299. 
Bower, Walter, 154. 
Bradfute, Marian, 127, 340. 
Bragaroethr, 215. 
Bragi, 214 f., 248 f., 253. 
Bran, son of Febal, 66 f., 85, 256. 
Brand, John, 302. 
Branwen, 159. 
Brehon laws, 80. 
Brendan, St., 217. 
Breri, 182 f. 

" Bret Glascurion," see Glasgerion. 
Bridlington, 150. 
Brigit, 215, 256. 
Britons, 184. 
Brittany, 119, 144. 
Britto, 216. 
Brogan, 76, 183. 
Bromius, 51. 
Brown, John Thomas Toshach, 9, 

123, 127, 134 f., 142, 180; 

quoted, 10, 28, 29 f., 173 f., 328, 

332, 338, 342. 
Brownie, 35, 36, 43, 51. 



Brownie-Puck, 47. 

Bruce, Robert, 63, 130, 154. 

Bruce, The, 10, 11. 148, 154. 

Brut, 159. 

Brutus, 119, 133, 185, 216, 265, 

346. 
Buan, 254. 

Buchanan, George, 153. 
Burlow Beanie, 102 f . 
Burnet, William, 324. 
Burns, Robert, 332; quoted, 6. 
Bute, John, Marquess of, quoted, 

289 f. 
Byron, Lord, quoted, 361. 

Cader Idris, 268. 

Cadmus, 51, 53. 

Caedmon, 84. 

Caeilte, son of Ronan, 74, 75, 76, 
86 ff., 90. 98, 161, 183, 219. 

Caermarthen, 352. 

Caer Sidi, 246. 

Caesar, Julius, 35. 

Cairell's wife, 81. 

Cairpre, 256. 

Caithness, 35, 123. 

Calchas, 93, 212, 265. 

Calliope, 77, 94. 

Cambridge History of English Liter- 
ature, quoted, 207 f . 

Campbell, John Francis, quoted, 
62, 306. 

Campi Elysii, 257. 

Canemor, 22. 

Caradoc of Llancarvan, 119, 133. 

Care, 236. 

Caridwen, Ceridwen, 244 f ., 256, 
281. 

Carl Blind, 158. 

Carswell, Bishop, quoted, 299 f. 

Cascorach, son of Cainchinn, 75, 
76. 



368 



INDEX 



Cassandra, 93, 265. 

Cattle-liftings, 89. 

Caxton, William, 169, 186 ff., 194. 

Cecrops, 93. 

Celts, the, 243; Celtic folklore, 34, 
44. 68, 72-77; the Celtic under- 
world connected with the classi- 
cal, 48; influence of the religion 
of the British tribes on litera- 
ture, 70 f.; Celtic bards, 79-92; 
comparison with bards in classi- 
cal tradition, 92 f.; Celtic con- 
ceptions of poesy, 243-247, 
279 flf.; inspired madmen, 267 &.; 
gifts obtained by mortal visi- 
tors to the otherworld, 252-258; 
Giraldus Cambrensis on sooth- 
saying, 264 f . 

Chadwick, Hector Munro, quoted, 
353. 

Chalcis, 212. 

Chalcondylas, Demetrius, 204. 

Chambers, Edmund Kerchever, 
quoted, 315 f. 

Champions Ecstasy, The, 81 f. 

Chandos, Earl of, 144. 

Chanson de Roland, 220. 

Charlemagne, 354. 

Charles the Bold, duke of Bur- 
gundy, 20. 

Charteris, Henry, quoted, 168 f., 
187. 

Chdtillon, Gauchier de, 144. 

Chaucer, 8, 48, 76, 123, 124, 127- 
133, 135, 140, 144 f., 165, 174 ff., 
206, 295, 332. 

Chepman, Walter, 114. 

Chad, Francis James, 100 f., 112, 
157 f. 

ChUds, Francis Lane, 12, 127, 194. 

Chiron, 76. 

Chretien of Troyes, 69. 



Christ, 226 f ., 262, 264. See Jesus. 

Christian Year, The, 278. 

Cian, 252. 

Cicero, 209, 269. See Tully. 

Cieran, St., 84. 

Ciniu, 47. 

Cithaeron, 53. 

Cleopatra, 272. 

Clerk, John, 123. 

Clio, 94, 132. 

Clonmacnoise, 84. 

Cnoc na Righ, 98. 

Cnu, 74 f . 

Cole, King, 32. 

Colkelbie Sow, 322. 

Collins, William, quoted, 298. 

Colloquy of the Elders, 98, 219; 

quoted, 87. 
Colophon, 211. 
Columba, 80. 
Colum Cille, 81. 
Colville, Samuel, quoted, 306. 
Comar, battle of, 87. 
Comgan, 268 f. 
Complaint of Anelida upon Arcite, 

8, 
Comyn, Michael, 64. 
Conchobar, 271. 
Conn of the Hundred Battles, 23, 

81 f., 253. 
Connaught, 66. 
Connla, 253. 

Connla's Well, 250 f., 255. 
Corcyra, 94. 
Cormac, 253 ff. 
Cornwall, King, 102 f. 
Corspa trick, 24. 
Corybantian revellers, 274. 
Court of Love, 123. 
Couvin, Watriquet de, 144. 
Craigie, William Alexander, 165; 

quoted, 9, 339. 



INDEX 



369 



Craik, George Lillie, quoted, 7 f. 

Crawar, William, 142. 

Creophylus, 211. 

Cressida, 127. 

Cretheis, 212. 

Crunnchu, 87. 

Cuchulinn, 46, 82 ff., 251, 271. 

CuUmenn, The, 83. 

Cumaean Sibyl, the, 257. 

Cumhail, 32. 

Cummyn, Sir William, quoted, 

140 f. 
Cuvelier, 144. 
Cyclopes, 352. 

Daemonologie, 257. 

Dag, 158. 

Dagda. the, 75, 250, 256. 

DaiTnones, 48. 

Damascus, 225. 

Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, 24. 

Dante, 204, 240, 260 f., 265, 275, 

282, 358, 361. 
Dares Phrygius, 175, 219. 
Darnaway Castle, 140. 
David, 35, 217. 
Decies, 268. 
Delphi, 228, 266. 
Democritus, 279. 
Demodocus, 93, 94, 210, 223, 224, 

233. 
Dempster, Thomas, 114, 205. 
Denmark, 215. 
De Nugia Curialium, 67. 
Dereoil, 75. 
Destructions, 89. 

Dialogue ofOisin and Patrick, 156 f. 
Diana, 322. 
Dictaean Zeus, 262. 
Dictionary of National Biography, 

182. 
Dictys Cretensis, 175, 219. 



Dinnesenchas, 229, 250 f . 
Diogenes Laertius, 348. 
Dionysus, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 

53, 54, 268, 274. 
Don, court of, 34. 
Dornoch, 123. 

Douglas, Gavin, 76; quoted, 63. 
Douglas, James, last Earl of, 148. 
Douglas of Kilspendie, Archibald, 

114. 
Druids, the, 49, 246, 269, 271. 
Druis, 216. 

Dryden, John, quoted, 269. 
Du£F, William, 206. 
Dunadoon, 78. 
Dunbar, castle of, 153. 
Dunbar, William, 14, 15, 23, 24, 

25. 63, 72, 96, 104, 110, 112. 

113, 122, 124, 163, 204; his 

Dwarfs Part of the Play, 26-54. 
Dunkeld, 181. 

Dunlop, John Colin, quoted, 174. 
Dwarfs' Drink, 249. 
Dwarf's Part of the Play, The, 26- 

54. 
Dyer, Louis, quoted, 53 f. 

Earl Brand. 101. 

Ebro, the, 22. 

Eddie lays, 214 f., 217 ff., 220, 

247-250. 
Edinburgh, 31, 47, 142, 302 f. 
Edward I, king of England, 22, 

136 f., 147. 
Edward IV, king of England, 

147 ff. 
Eger. 69. 

Eger and Grime, 69, 113. 
Egypt, 270, 272. 
Eildon Tree, the, 55. 
Elaine, 271. 
Elder Edda, 216. 



370 



INDEX 



Eli, 34. 

Elijah, 263. 

Elisha, 225. 

Ellis, George, 206. 

Elphin, 245. 

Elton, Charles Isaac, quoted, 70 f . 

Elymas, 226. 

Elysium, 66, 252, 257. 

Emania, 73, 74. 

Emelye, 129. 

Emer, 271. 

Empedocles, 358. 

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 163 f. 

England, queen of, 139, 143. 

Enoch, 34. 

Ephorus, 209, 230. 

Epimenides, 262. 

" Eques Montanus," 114. 

Erato, 94. 

Erceldoun, Ercildoun, 55, 58, 108. 

Erginas of Orchomenos, 297. 

Eros, 268, 271. 

Erroll, Earl of, 142. 

Erse, the, 23 fiF., 163. 

Esirt, 73 f . 

Eskdale, 149. 

Eugaion, 212. 

Eumolpus, 93. 

Euripides, 50 fiF. 

Eurydice, 77, 272. 

Evnissyen, 158 f. 

Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, 113. 

Ezekiel, 234. 

Fail, 167. 
Faile, 154. 
Fairie Queene, 71. 
Fal, the, 228. 
Falkirk, 188. 
Fand, 271. 
" Far-Traveller," 92. 
Faust, 110, 235 f. 



Fawdoun, ghost of, 99, 104, 128' 

129, 187. 
Feeling Jor Nature in Scottish 

Poetry, The, by Veitch, quoted, 

4f. 
Fehew, see Fitz Hugh. 
Fenians, 155 £F., 159. 
Ferdinand, 43. 
Fergus mac Roich, 22, 73, 74, 83 f ., 

90. 
Fergus Truelips, 89, 90. 
Fiachu, 99. 
Fian-lore, the, 74, 76. 
Fianna, Fians, the, 75, 85-88, 89, 

97 f., 213. 
Fife, 143. 
Fingal, 27. 
Finn, Fionn, Finn mac Coul, Finn 

mac Cumhail(l), 63, 64, 65, 75, 

77, 86, 88 fiF., 96, 98, 99, 155, 

156 f., 212 f. 
Finnen of Moville, 81. 
Fintan, 81. 
Fintray, 156. 
Firth of Forth, the, 148. 
Fisher, Sydney George, quoted, 

196 f. 
Fitz Hugh, 136 f . 
Fjallar, 248. 
Flodden, 146, 165. 
Flood, the, 81. 
Florence, 204. 
Flyting, of Dunbar and Kennedy, 

23 f . ; of Montgomery and 

Polwart, 49 f ., 103. 
Ford, Master, 266. 
Ford, Paul Leicester, 197. 
Forgoll, 88. 
Forts, 89. 
Fortune, 106, 126. 
Fountain of Knowledge, the, 254, 

255. 



INDEX 



371 



France, 187, 188, 192, 231. 

France, king of, 137 f. 

Francus, 216. 

Friar Tuck, 112. 

Froissart, Jean, 17. 

Fyn MacKowle, see Fingal, Finn. 

Gabhra, battle of, 85. 

Gaels, the, 32, 160, 162; Gaelic 
tongue, the, 23 S., 163; Gaelic 
tradition, 35, 62; Gaelic folk- 
lore, 44; Gaelic folklore and 
Blind Harry, 96-107, 109 f.; 
Scottish Gaelic verse, 64; Gaelic 
poem by Comyn, 64; the Gaelic 
inheritance in Scottish literature, 
161-164. 

Galarr, 248. 

Galloway, 142. 

Gangleri, 100, 219. 

Garadh's Well, 98. 

Garaidh, Garadh, Garry, or Gairri 
mac Morn, 97 f ., 161. 

Garnett, Richard, quoted, 208. 

Garog, 43. 

Gask Hall, 99. 

Gathelus, 22. 

Gaudifer de Larys, 306. 

Gawain, 28, 32, 41, 271, 359. 

Ge, 352. 

Gefion, 215. 

Genius astral, 35. 

GeoflFrey of Monmouth, 44, 118- 
123, 133, 151, 175, 182, 184 f., 
198, 265. 

Gessler, 195. 

Giant Turk, the, 41, 43. 

Gideon, 263. 

Gildas, 333. 

Gildon, Charles, 236. 

Giraldus Cambrensis, quoted, 57 f ., 
182, 185, 264 f. 



Gjallar-Horn, 229. 

Glamis, Lord, 142. 

Glasgerion, 76, 271. 

Glasgow, 15. 

Glass Fortress, the, 246. 

Glaucus, 93. 

Godefroy de Bouillon, 354. 

Gododin, 313. 

Goethe, 235 f . 

Gog Magog, 27, 43, 44. 

Gog's wife, 28. 

Golden Isle, the, 272. 

Goldyn Targe, 204. 

Golias, Bishop, 219. 

Goll mac Morna, see Gow mac 

Morn. 
Gomorrah, 34. 
Gower, John, 132. 
Gow mac Morn, 28, 63 f., 89, 

96 f., 155, 157. 
Gowra, battle of, 87. 
Gowrie, William, first Earl of, 114. 
Graelent, 308. 
Grail, the, 182. 
Gray, Lord, 142. 
Gray, Margaret Muriel, 326. 
Gray, Sir Thomas, 154. 
Gray, Thomas, of Libertoun, 171, 

173. 
Gray, Thomas, English poet, 278; 

quoted, 234, 255. 
Gray Steil, 113 f. 
Greece, 45, 47, 255. 
Greek myth, 46, 252, 255, 266, 

270. 
Greek prophets, 264. 
Greeks, 243. 
Grimsby, 137, 171. 
GrufiFydd, William John, quoted, 

313, 314. 
Guaire Goll, 98, 99. 
Gude Wallace, 319. 



372 



INDEX 



Guesclin, Bertrand du, 144. 
Guest the Blind, 100. 
Guido delle Colonne, 175. 176. 
Guinevere, 271. 
Guingamor, 67 f . 
Gunnlod, 248, 249, 298. 
Guy. 26, 32, 41 f.^ 43, 57, 110. 
Guy on. Sir, see Huon. 
Gweir, 246, 247. 
Gwenddydd, 359. 
Gwion Bach, 245 f. 
Gwydion, 34, 247, 251, 256, 316. 
Gwyn ap Nudd, 71. 
Gyges, 60. 
Gylfaginning, 229. 
Gyre (Gyir) Carling, the, 56, 103, 
104. 

Hades, 92. 246, 360. 

Hagal, 101. 

Hailes, Lord, 191; quoted, 151. 

Halbjorn Hali, 84. 

Hallowe'en. 49. 50. 

Hamlet, 105. 

Hamlet's father, 128. 

Hamund, 158. 

Hannibal, 292. 

Hardyknute, 196. 

Harlequin, 69. 

Harog, 43. 

Harr, 99 f., 218 f. 

Harry Gad, 320. 

Harry the Minstrel, 163. 

Hdvamdl, 218. 

Hawes, Stephen. 123. 

Head of Hades, the, 251. 

Hebrew myth, 251. 

Hebrew prophets, 264. 

Hebrides, the, 302, 306. 

Hecate, 104. 

Hector. Sir. 271. 

Heimskringla, 214. 



Helen, 227. 270, 272. 

Helenus, 93. 

Helgi, 101, 102, 158. 

Helgi Hundingslayer, 101. 

Helgi Thorisson. 60. 

Helicon, 255, 279, 360. 

Hellekin, 69. 

Henderson, Thomas F.. quoted, 

10 ff., 172. 
Henry H, king of England, 68. 
Henry of Huntingdon, 119. 
" Henry the Minstrel." 6. 27. 59, 

190. 208. 
Henryson. Robert, 11. 
Hephaestus. 94, 231. 
Hera, 225, 360. 

Heracles, 94, 360. See Hercules. 
Heraclides. 209. 
Hercules, 20, 38, 39, 44. See 

Heracles. 
Hereward, 354. 
Herla, 48, 68. 
Hermes, 37, 77. 
Hesiod. 48. 211, 212. 214, 322, 

360. 
Hibernia. 22. 
Highlanders, ancestry of, 22 f.; 

bards among, 23 f.; the Erse, 

23 f . ; connection with the Irish, 

22-25; at Bannockburn, 63. 
Hill of the Kings, 98. 
Hilton, Walter, quoted, 265 f. 
Hind Etin, 104. 
Hipparchus, 348. 
Hippolyta, 273. 
Historia Regum Britanniae, 118, 

133. 184. 
History of Britain, by Milton, 

216 f. 
History of Greater Britain, by 

Major. 15. 
Hnitbjorg, 248, 249. 



INDEX 



S7S 



Hobgoblin, 40. 

Horselberg, 58. 

Holland, Sir Richard, 23, 140. 

Holyrood, 142. 

Holy Spirit, the, 225 f., 263, 264, 

Homer, 19 ff., 93 f., 175, 201 f., 

203-238, 240, 265, 267, 322. 
Horace, 279. 
Horatio, 105. 128. 
Horus, 212. 

House of Fame, 76, 135. 
Howlat, 23. 
Hugh, see Aedh. 
Hughes, John, quoted, 234. 
Hume of Godscroft, quoted, 114. 
Hunding, 101. 
Huon of Bordeaux, Sir, 71. 
Hyacinthus, 93, 94. 

lacchus, 51. 

Iber, 22. 

Iceland, 333. 

Idunn, Idun, 215. 253. 

Iliad. 94, 205, 237. 

Ind, 32. 39, 52. 

Indra, 251 f. 

Ingeborg of the Glittering Plains, 
60. 

Innocent III, bull of, 299. 

Inverallochy, 140. 

Inverness, 61. 

Ireland, 22, 23. 153. 

Irish, the. poetry of. 21. 33; 
descent of. 22; supposed an- 
cestors of the Highlanders. 22 f. 

Irving. David. 193. 206. 327. 331, 
339. 

Irving, Washington. 198 flf . ; quoted, 
345 f. 

Isis. 212. 

Isle of Joy. the, 66. 

Isle of Man, the, 41. 



Isles of the Dead, 162. 
Isocrates, quoted, 201. 
Israel, 263. 
Ithaca, 211. 

Jack Harys, 320. 

Jack Raker, 324 f . 

James I, king of Scotland. 21. 153, 

203. 
James III. king of Scotland. 112 f., 

153. 
James IV. king of Scotland. 20, 23, 

63. 113, 114, 302. 
James V, king of Scotland, 42, 56, 

63. 103. 114. 141. 231, 257. 
Japhet. 216. 
Jaques. 282. 
Jean de Bourgogne. see Mande- 

ville. 
Jehovah, 227. 
Jephthah, 263. 
Jerome, St., 25. 265. 
Jerusalem. 35. 
Jesus, 263. 264. See Christ. 
Juet. Robert. 346. 
Jews. the. 226 f.. 264. 
Joan of Arc. 231. 
Job. 217. 

Jocelin of Furness. 300. 
Johannaeus. quoted. 333. 
John of Lynn, 171, 188. 
John the Evangelist, St., 152, 185, 

277; quoted. 44, 264. 
Johnson, Samuel. 196. 
Jonet the Widow, 320 f . 
Jonson, Ben, 321. 
Jop, 137, 171. 

Josephus, Flavins, 207. 348. 
Jove, 255, 282. See Zeus. 
Joyce, Patrick, quoted. 300, 335. 
Joyous Isle, the, 271. 
Jubhdan. King. 73. 74. 



374 



INDEX 



Kay, Sir, 70. 

Keble, John, 278 f.; quoted, 347. 

Keightley, Thomas, quoted, 333. 

Kennedy, Walter, 23, 24. 

Kentigern, St., 58. 

Kern of the Narrow Stripes, the, 

311. 
Kilspendie, see Douglas. 
King Arthur and King Cornwall, 

102. 
King of Shadows, 71. 
Kirk, Robert, 45, 358; quoted, 60 f. 
Kittredge, George Lyman, 112; 

quoted, 174 fiF. 
Knickerbocker, Diedrich, 198 ff. 
Knight's Tale, The, 127, 128, 129, 

130, 171. 
Kouretes, 48, 49, 52. 
Kouros, 50. 
Kvasu-, 248. 
Kvasir's Blood, 249. 

Lady of the Golden Isle, the, 304 f. 

Laegaire mac Neill, 82. 

Lailoken, 58. 

Laing, David, quoted, 339. 

L' Allegro, 103. 

Lament for the Makers, 14, 110, 

112, 113, 124. 
Lamerik, 142. 
Lancaster, House of, 149. 
Lancelot, 271. 
Lancelot of the Laik, 326. 
Land of Promise, the, 250, 253 S. 
Land of Women, the, 66. 
Land of Youth, the, 64 f., 86. 
Lang, Andrew, quoted, 344. 
Langland, William, 37; quoted, 

331. 
Langtoft, Pers de, 194. 
Lanval, 271, 308. 
La Rochelle, 138. 



Latin historical works. Major's 

opinion of, 17. 
La Vie du Prince Noir, 144. 
La Vie Vaillant Beriran du Gues- 

clin, 144. 
Layamon, 122, 159. 
Lay of Aristotle, 360. 
Lay of Narcissus, 360. 
Lay of Oisin (Ossin), 64 f., 85 f. 
Leabhar Gabhala, 81. 
Leabhar na hUidhre, 84. 
Leaf, Walter, quoted, 353 f . 
Ler, 250. 
Liban, 271. 

Libeaus Desconus, 271 f ., 304 f. 
Liddell, 121, 133. 
Liddesdale, 148. 
Life of Dante, by Boccaccio, 

quoted, 260 f . 
Life of Homer, by Blackwell, 205 f . 
Life of Williain Wallace, 3 f . ; real 

author of the, 116-146; purpose 

and spirit of, 148-169; Master 

Blair's " Latyn buk " the poet's 

supposed authority, 170-183; 

the Wallace as history, 184-202. 

See Blind Harry. 
Linlithgow, 10, 332. 
Linus, 93, 94. 

Little Brawl at Almhaiyi, The, 89. 
Little John, 16. 
Lives of the Scottish Poets, 206. 
Llewarch Hen, Llywarch Hen, 79, 

90 f. 
Lochmaben, 148. 
Lodan Lucharglan, 250. 
Lodge, Henry Cabot, 197. 
Loegaire mac Crimthain, 66. 
Logres, 356. 
Loki, 356. 
Lollius, 131, 174 ff. 
Lomond, Loch, 28. 



INDEX 



375 



London, 228. 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 

quoted, 283. 
Longueville, Thomas, 188. 
Loosepain, 309. 
Lordship of the Isles, the, 23. 
Lome, Lord of, 63. 
Lot, 225. 

Lothian, 143, 332. 
Lough Neagh, 268. 
Lucerne, 195. 
Lucian, 209, 316, 356. 
Lucifer, 34, 104. 
Lug, 81 f. 
Lunette, 308. 
Lupracdn, the, 73. 
Luridan, 35, 43, 51. 
Lycurgus, 211, 224. 
Lydgate, John, 123, 320; quoted, 

70. 
Lyndsay, Sir David, 24 f., 42 f., 

56f., 63f., 141f.; quoted, 324. 
Lyon Herald, 142. 
Lyon King at Arms, 142. 

Mab, 272. 
Mabinogi, the, 159. 
Mac-da-cerda, 268 f, 
Macdonalds, the, 23. 
Macdougals, the, 23. 
Macewens, the, 23. 
MacFadden, 24, 145, 163. 
MacKay, 97. 
Mackay, Aeneas James George, 16, 

28, 344; quoted, 290, 325, 332. 
Mackie, 97. 
Maclauchlans, the, 23. 
Macleod, 110. 

MacLeod, Fiona, see Sharp. 
MacLughach, 89. 
Macneills, the, 23. 
Macpherson, James, 196, 204. 



Maelgwn, 280. 

Magh Aei, 83. 

Mag Mell, 66. 

Magog, see Gog Magog. 

Magus, 216. 

Mahoun, 162, 163, 321. 

Maitland Club, the, 191. 

Major, John, 4, 7, 8, 9, 48, 115, 
120 f., 160, 187 ff., 192, 194, 
207, 332; his evidence, 14-25, 
208; on prophets, 151 ff.; on 
prejudice, 166 f.; on King Ar- 
thur, 358 f . 

Malory, Sir Thomas, quoted, 177. 

Manannan MacLir, 254 f . 

Mandeville, Sir John, 180 ff. 

Manerus, 93. 

Map, Walter, 48, 68, 203 f. 

Mappa Mundi, 181. 

Mar, Earl of, 153. 

March, 256. 

Marchmond Herald, 140. 

Margaret, St., 334. 

Margaret of Anjou, 149. 

Margaret Tudor, Princess, 302. 

Margites, 94. 

Marie de France, 67. 

Marlyng, see Merlin. 

Mars, 219. 

Marston, Philip Bourke, 236, 237. 

Marvell, Andrew, quoted, 234. 

Masefield, John, 237. 

Masson, David, 164. 

Master of Wisdom, 284. 

Math, 247, 256. 

Maximus of Tyre, 262. 

Media, 51. 

Medon, 211. 

Meilerius, 57 f., 185, 368. 

Melampus, 93. 

" Men of Hu," 257. 

Mercury, 214, 255 



376 



INDEX 



Mercutio, 266. 

Merlin, 46, 56, 58, 73, 119 f., 149- 

155, 159, 176-179, 230, 246, 

264 f., 321. 
Merlin Sylvester, 58, 
Merry Wives of Windsor, 266. 
Merse, the, 143. 
Mesnie Hellekin, 68 f . 
Midsummer-Night's Dream, 45, 50, 

242 f. 
Milton, John, 210, 126 f., 233 ff., 

236, 240, 303; quoted, 281 f. 
Mimir, 229, 247. 
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 

quoted, 108. 
Minto, William, quoted, 164. 
Moir, James, 172 f., 209 f.; quoted, 

327, 335, 340. 
Monarchy, The, 25. 
Mongan, 46, 88. 
Monkton Kirk, 105. 
Monstrelet, Enguerrand de, 17. 
Montgomery, Alexander, 23, 114; 

quoted, 49. 
Mopsus, 93, 212. 
Moran, Michael, 348. 
Moray, Earl of, 140. 
Morgain la Fee, 69, 70. 
Morgan, Daniel, 345. 
Morison, R., 205. 
Morley, Henry, 207, 325. 
Morn, Sons of, 161. 
Morna, clan of, 98. 
Morte AHhure, 169, 177, 186 f. 
Moses, 227. 

Mount Vernon, Virginia, 196. 
Munster, 268. 

Miuray, Gilbert, quoted, 49. 
Musaeus, 93, 322. 
Muses, the, 77, 201, 221, 223 f., 

233, 234, 268, 273 f., 322, 326, 

360 f, 



Myllar, Andrew, 114. 
Myrddin, 359. 

Napoleon, 354. 

Narcissus, 93. 

Nash, Thomas, 110; quoted, 45. 

Nealus, 22. 

Nechtan, son of Colbran, 66 f ., 85. 

Nechtan, son of Labraid, 229, 250. 

Nectanebus, 354. 

Neilson, George, 136, 194; quoted, 
12, 18, 201, 332; on the date of 
the Wallace, 147 flf., 328. 

Neilson, William Allan, 290 f. 

Neptune, 216. 

Newark, 4. 

News out of Purgatory, 110. 

New Testament, the, 264. 

New York, 198 flf. 

Niall, 82. 

Niamh, 64, 65, 77. 

Nibelungenlied, 220. 

Nicholson, William, 321. 

Nine Worthies, the, 186. 

Nissyen, 158 f, 

Noah, 34. 

Normans, the, 265. 

North Berwick, 332. 

Northern Fairies, 35. 

Northumberland, 177, 178. 

Norway, 214. 

Numa, 358. 

Nutt, Alfred, quoted, 45 f., 82, 
90 f., 213, 251, 307, 336, 355. 

Oberon, 39, 71. 

Ocean Sea, the, 28. 

O'Clery, Michael, 314. 

Odin, 92, 99 f ., 158, 159, 160, 213 ff. 

217 ff., 220, 229, 230, 231, 247. 

249 f., 251, 298, 308, 314. 
Odrerir, 248, 249, 250, 



INDEX 



377 



Odysseus, 93, 224. See Ulysses. 

Odyssey, 94, 210. 

Oedipus, 53. 

Oengus, 250. 

Oger le Danois, 69 f . 

Ogma Cermait, 256. 

Ogmios, 316, 356. 

Ogyrven, 256. 

Oisin, see Ossian. 

Olaf Tryggvason, 60, 217, 229. 

Old Carl Hood, 158. 

Old Poet, the, 284. 

Olen, 93. 

Ollarba, battle of, 87. 

Olyfant, Lord, 142. 

Olympus, 223. 

O'Mahony, Fingin, 342. 

O'Neill, Hugh, 335. 

Onomacritus, 93. 

Orpheus, 21, 76, 77, 78, 92, 93, 94, 

203, 272 f., 322. 
Oscar, 89. 
Ossian, 62-66, 74 f., 77 f., 86 ff., 

89, 90 f., 97, 98, 110, 155 flF., 

160,161, 212 f., 215, 219, 220; 

Macpherson's Ossian, 196, 204. 
Ossian Dall, 86. 
Ossian s Prayer, 155 f. 
Ouchterhous, 134. 
Ovid, 175, 176. 
Owain Miles, 261. 

Pagan Review, 162. 

Palace of Honor, 63, 76. 

Palamon, 128, 129 f. 

Pallas, 255. 

Pamphos, 93. 

Pan, 37, 38, 44, 48, 50. 

Paradise, 262. 

Paradise Lost, 210, 236. 

Paris, 15, 16, 17, 19, 138, 170. 

Paris, Gaston, quoted, 308, 342. 



Parker, Martin, 325. 

Parnassus, 326. 

Patrick, St., 64, 65, 74, 75, 76, 78, 

80, 81, 82, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89 f., 

98, 110, 155 ff., 183, 219, 300. 
Paul, St., 259. See Saul. 
Pausanias, 209. 
Penelope, 211. 
Pentheus, 53. 
Perceval, Sir, 271. 
Persephone, 260, 307 f . 
Persians, the, 360. 
Perth, 332. 
Phaedrus. 267 f . 
Pharais, 162. 
Pharaoh of Egypt, 22. 
Philammon, 93. 
Philips, Ambrose, 205. 
Phillips, Stephen, quoted, 235. 
Philostratus, 211. 
Phineus, 224, 233. 
Picts, 168. 
Piers Plowman, 30. 
Pierus, 224. 
Pindar, 255, 265. 
Pisistratus, 209. 

Plains of Pleasure, the, 66, 271. 
Plato, 217, 227, 267 f., 270, 275, 

279, 348, 354; quoted, 259 f., 

273f., 322, 361. 
Play, allegorical figure, 47, 50. 
Pliny Major, quoted, 360. 
Plutarch, 94, 261; quoted, 350. 
Pluto, 48. 

Poema del Cid, 220. 
Poesy, pedigree of, 284. 
Polwart(h), Sir Patrick Hume of, 

49; quoted, 50, 103. 
Pomona, 35. 
Prelude. 228. 
Priam, 211. 
Progress of Poesy, 255, 



378 



INDEX 



Prometheus, 283, 351, 
Prophecy of Waldhave, 58. 
Prophisies of Rymour, Beid, and 

Marlyng, The, 56. 
Proserpina, 48. 
Pryderi, 246. 
Puck, 38, 39, 46. 
Purgatory of St. Patrick, 261. 
Pwyll, 246, 256. 
Pythia, the, 267. 

QuareofJelusy, 123 S., 126. 
Quiggm, Edmund Crosby, quoted, 
312. 

Rabelais, 294. 

Ramsay, John, scribe, 10, 14. 

Ramsay, Sir John, 134. 

Rath Cruachan, 161. 

Red (Reid) Etin, the, 56, 103 f. 

Redgauntlet, quoted, 108 f . 

Register of Arms, 142. 

Reid, Sir John, 113. 

Remarks on the History of Scotland, 

151. 
Rhodes, Knights of, 139. 
Rhys, Sir John, 246; quoted, 90, 

247, 251 f., 316. 
Richard I, king of England, 17, 

354. 
Richard of St. Victor, quoted, 

361 f. 
Rig- Veda, the, 252. 
Ritson, Joseph, 196. 
Robert, Earl of Gloucester, 119. 
Robert of Brunne, 179, 194. 
Robin Goodfellow, 36, 39 f., 45, 

47, 103, 110. 
Robin Goodfellow, 46. 
Robin Hood, 16, 112, 354. 
Rochester, 16. 



Rollins, Hyder Edward, 325. 
Roman de Merlin, 177, 178. 
Romans, 266. 
Romanus, 216. 
Rome, 181, 192, 219. 
Romulus, 219. 
Roscommon, 83. 
Ross, Earl of, 123. 
Ross, John Merry, quoted, 172. 
Ross Herald, the, 134. 
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 236. 
Round Table, the, 70, 108, 272. 
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 361. 
Russ, Melchior, 195. 

Saemund's Edda, 158. 

Saga, seeress, 247. 

Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, 60. 

St. Andrews, 15. 

St. David's, church of, 57. 

St. Johnston, 127, 143, 

Samson, 86, 263. 

Samuel, 346. 

Sanskrit myth, 251 f. 

Saron, 216. 

Satire of the Three Estates, 63. 

Satyr, 51. 

Saul, 225 f., 263. See Paul. 

Saxo Grammaticus, 195; quoted, 
158. 

Saxons, 68, 264. 

Scandinavians, the, 213 f.; Scan- 
dinavian or Old Norse myths, 
60, 84, 92, 213-216, 217-219, 
229, 247-251, 253, 255. 

Scath, 82, 251. 

Schipper, Jakob, 27-29. 

Scone, stone of, 22, 

Scot, Michael, 265. 

Scot, Reginald, quoted, 36. 

Scota, 22. 

Scotichronicon, 192, 201. 



INDEX 



379 



Scotland, fairies and fiends in, 43, 
49; the Wallace and Scottish 
national feeling, 5, 146, 147 ff., 
160, 165-168; political proph- 
ecies, 151-155; the Gaelic in- 
heritance in Scottish literature, 
161-164. 

Scott, Alexander, 39. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 3, 4, 55, 107 fF., 
330; quoted, 5, 339. 

Scotticism, 163 f . 

Scottish Vernacular Literature, by 
T. F. Henderson, quoted, 10 ff. 

Secret Commonwealth of Elves, 
Fauns, and Fairies, 45. 

Secret Well, the, 229. 

Selund, 215. 

Semele, 46, 51. 

Senchan Torpeist, 83. 

Seneca, quoted, 269. 

Seon, 250. 

Shakespeare, 39, 45, 105, 240, 
242 f., 266, 270, 272, 279, 361. 

Shannon, the, 251. 

Sharp, William, 161 f.; quoted, 
77 f. 

Shaw, Quentin, 112. 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, quoted, 
282, 283. 

Sibyl, 218, 219, 221, 247. 

Sigar, 158. 

Siloam, pool of, 226. 

Silver Branch, the, 254. 

Simeon, 263. 

Simon Magus, 321. 

Sinclair, Bishop, 181, 329. 

Sinend, 250 f. 

Sion Kent, 257. 

Sirens, 224. 

Sir John Rowll's Cursing, 43. 

Sir Orfeo, 272. 

Sir Tristrem, 59, 108. 



Skaldskaparmdl, 247-250. 
Skeat, Walter William, 127. 
Skelton, John, 165 f., 320; quoted, 

337. 
Smith, George Gregory, quoted, 

294. 
Snorri Sturluson, 92, 99 f., 214, 

215, 216, 219, 229, 247-250. 
Snowdon, 268. 
Socrates, 266, 354. 
Sodom, 34, 225. 
Sokkmimir, 229. 
Solomon, 35, 86. 
Solon, 348. 
Son, 248, 249, 250. 
Sophocles, 53. 
Spain, 22. 
Spenser, Edmund, 123; quoted, 37, 

329. 
Spottiswood, John, 114. 
Srub Brain, 66. 
Stanley, house of, 146. 
Statins, 175, 176. 
Stesichorus, 227. 
Stevenson, Joseph, 191 f. 
Stewart, John Alexander, quoted, 

362. 
Stirling, 113. 
Stobo, 112 f., 114. 
Story of Engla7id, 179. 
Strabo, quoted, 49. 
Strode, Ralph, 132. 
Stubbes, Thomas, quoted, 303. 
Stygian Jupiter, the, 20. 
Suidas, 236. 
Sultan-land, 26, 32, 41. 
Sunk-bench, 247. 
Sutherland, 35. 
Suttungr, 248, 249. 
Sveinsson, Brynjolf, 333. 
Sweden, 215. 
Swegdir, King, 308. 



380 



INDEX 



Swiss, the, 195. 
Syria, 29. 
Syrians, 225. 

Tahiti, 359. 

Tdin bd Cudlgne, 83, 89. 

Taliessin, 33, 34, 51, 79, 244 ff., 

279 ff. 
Tam Lin, Tamlane, 59 f. 
Tannhauser, 58. 
Tara, 254. 

Tarlton, Richard, 110. 
Taylor, Rupert, 151. 
Teigue, 252 f . 
Tell, William, 195, 354. 
Thamyris, 94, 224, 233. 
Thebes, 51, 52. 
Theophilus Insulanus, 110. 
Theopompus, 211. 
Theseus, 243, 270, 273. 
Thomas, Anglo-Norman poet, 182f. 
Thomas k Becket, 80, 106, 
Thomas of Brittany, 59. 
Thomas Rhymer, 55-57, 59-62, 

68, 72, 80, 105 f., 107, 108, 109, 

110, 149 flF., 152-155,259. 
Thomson, James, quoted, 302. 
Thrace, 352. 
Thucydides, 209. 
Timarchus, 261. 

Tiresias, 53, 54, 224, 225, 233, 234, 

265. 
Tir na nOg, 64 f., 85. 
Titans, the, 38, 352. 
Tokko, 195. 
Tolomer, 179. 
To Milton — Blind, 235. 
Tomnafurach, 62. 
Tom Tumbler, 36. 
Tours, 346. 
Treasurer's Accounts of Scotland, 

111, 112, 113, 142 f. 



Tristram, Tristrem, 70, 108, 183. 
270. 

Trailus, 127, 128, 131 f., 141, 174. 

Trojans, 265. 

Trojan War, the, 176, 211, 219. 

Trophonius, 262. 

Troy, 34, 94, 265. 

True Thomas, see Thomas Rhy- 
mer. 

Tuan MacCairill, 80 f., 304, 

Tuatha de Danann, 44, 46, 75, 254. 

TuUy, 204. Se« Cicero. 

Tundalus, 110. 

Turk and Gawain, The, 41. 

Turkey, 215. 

Turks, the, 36. 

Two Fiddlers, the, 68. 

Tylor, Edward Burnett, quoted, 
216, 239, 266 f., 299, 359. 

Tytler, Patrick Fraser, quoted, 
189 {., 191, 343 f. 

Tzetzes, John, 214. 

Ucht Cleitigh, 87. 

Ulster, 73, 81. 

Ulysses, 20. See Odysseus. 

Uranus, 352. 

Uri, 195. 

Urien, 256. 

Urthin Wadd Elgin, 35. 

Uther Pendragon, 152, 246, 

Valfather, 218, 229. 

Vani, 248. 

Varia Capella, see Falkirk. 

Vegtamr, 92. 

Veitch, John, quoted, 4 f., 6, 339. 

Veitch, William, 324. 

Venus, 127, 131. 

Verona, 260. 

Virgil, 257, 326, 354. 

Virgin, the, 42, 105 f. 



INDEX 



381 



Visio Tnugdali, 110. 

Vita Merlini, 58. 

Vita S. Littdgeri, quoted, 353. 

Voluspa, 229. 

Vortigern, 74, 152. 

Voyage of Bran, 47, 85. 

Waldhave, see Waltheof . 
Wales, 35, 70, 79, 256, 264. 
Wallace, king's messenger, 142 f. 
Wallace, Sir Richard, 209 f. 
Wallace, Sir William, see Life of 

William Wallace. 
Wallace of Craigie, 121, 133. 
Wallace Papers, 191 f. 
Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, 119. 
Waltheof, St., abbot of Melrose, 

58. 150. 
Wandering Willie, 108 f . 
Wantonness, 47, 50. 
Warton, Joseph, quoted, 361. 
Warton, Thomas, quoted, 135. 
Washington, George, 196 f. 
Wayland Smith, 353. 
Way-wont, 92. 

Wealth, allegorical figure, 32,47, 50. 
Webster, Kenneth Grant Tre- 

mayne, 291. 
Weems, Mason Locke, 196 f . 
Wee Wee Man, The, 71 f. 
Wee Wee Men, 38 f . 
Welfare, 47, 50. 
Welsh myths, 33, 158 f. 
Wentz, Walter Yeeling Evans, 

quoted, 359. 
Whitby, 84. 
Whittier, John Greenleaf, quoted, 

297. 
Whole Prophecy of Scotland, 58, 

150. 



Wtdsith, 91 f. 

Wild Chase, the, 69. 

Wild Scots, the, 21, 22, 160. 

William of Cloudesley, 195. 

William of Malmesbury, 119, 133, 

184. 
William of Newbury, 184. 
Winkle, Rip Van, 198, 199. 
Wister, Owen, 197. 
Woden, see Odin. 
Wolf, Friedrich August, 206. 
Wood, Robert, 206; quoted, 347, 

348 f. 
Wooing of Etain, 272. 
Wooings, 89. 

Wordsworth, William, quoted, 228. 
World War, the, 169. 
Wye, the, 68. 
Wyntoun, Andrew of, 154, 167, 

358. 

Yehl, 357. 

Ygerne, 152. 

Yggdrasill, 229, 247. 

Ynglinga^aga, 216. 

Yonec, 360. 

York, House of, 149. 

Young, Edward, 206; quoted, 

276. 
Young Akin, 104. 
Young Hastings, 104. 
Young Poet, the, 284. 
Young Tamlane, see Tam Lin. 
Ysolde, Ysolt, 108, 270. 
Yvain, 69, 271, 308. 

Zacharias, 263. 
Zarri, see Garaidh. 
Zeus, 46, 51, 52, 77, 93, 224, 225, 
262. See Jove. 



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